Lab Partners For Life
by princessmikey14
Summary: On the first day of their junior year of high school Jesse and Cassie are assigned to be lab partners. They progressively grow closer and even years later they are close. Flashbacks are a little AU. Jesse/OC. T for general Breaking Bad theme.
1. Chapter 1

**August 2002**

"Good morning class, my name is Mr. White. Welcome to Chemistry I. I'll give you all an over view of my rules and whatnot, but first I want to put you with your lab partners. This was done at random, so if there are any major problems, please let me know," Walter White announced to his class on the first day of school. "Janet and Susan; George and Lillian; Annette and Peter; Joshua and Stephen..." Cassandra listened and waited for her name to be called. None of her friends were in this class with her, so it wasn't like it mattered who she ended up working with. "Jesse and Cassandra," Mr. White finally said. She picked up her books and moved to her assigned table as the teacher continued to read off the names. She looked over at her new lab partner-Jesse Pinkman. She didn't know him well, not anymore anyway, but she decided not to judge him like most people did. He got in trouble a lot and everybody said that he did drugs. Maybe it was true, maybe it wasn't. She couldn't be sure so she didn't want to assume anything.

"Do ya know much 'bout Chemistry?" Jesse asked her.

"No," she replied.

Mostly everyone knew that Mr. White was her uncle so Jesse assumed that she would know more about the topic. Mr. White began talking again. He was explaining the classroom rules and the safety measures, Cassandra and Jesse were both blocking him out, she already knew all of these things, he just didn't care.

"You will be completely your first assignment today," Mr. White informed them. "I will be passing out one sheet of paper. You and your partner will be working together a lot, I suggest you get to know each other, this sheet is to help you. And, it will be an easy ten points."

"What's your full name?" Cassandra read off the paper when she got it.

"Ya got a pencil?" Jesse asked, before answering her question. Cassandra nodded and reached into her bag under the desk. She gave him her extra one. "Jesse Bruce Pinkman," he replied. She jotted it down on the paper. "Yours?"  
"Cassandra Annmarie White. Call me Cassie though, please," she added. "When's your birthday?"

"Septemer 13."

"April 24," Cassie said, knowing his next question.

"Favorite color? Yo, this is pointless..."

"Just get it done and we won't have to worry about it," Cassie suggested. "Green."

"Red."

"Who's your hero?"

"The Quaker Oats guy," Jesse said, a slight smile playing on his lips. Cassie grinned a little too and wrote it down.

"Why?"

"He's got it all figured out yo. He's like got his face on the can and everything." Cassie did her best not to start laughing hysterically. "Who's your hero?"

"Um...Whoever invented duct tape. They must be a billionaire."

"People use that shit for everything!" They figured that if they had to fill out this paper, they might as well make the most of it. "Just last week, my water hose was leakin' so I put some fuckin' duct tape on it." She giggled, knowing that it was probably true. Duct tape was so amazing. It didn't take them long to finish their papers and give them to Mr. White. Most of their answers became sarcastic, just like the 'who's your hero?' one.

Jesse had to admit, he was wrong about Cassie. He thought that she would be like her uncle and be uptight and condescending, but he found that he was wrong. She liked to joke around, just like he did. Maybe, being lab partners with her wouldn't be so bad after all.

"So what do you have after this?" Cassie asked. Chemistry happened to be their first class, so they had a long day ahead of them.

"English," Jesse said.

"With which teacher? Roberts or Kinely?"

He pulled the crumpled up piece of paper out of his pocket and looked at his schedule. "Roberts."

"Huh, me too."

"Cool," he said.

It had been three weeks since school started. Jesse and Cassie were sitting in Chem, working on an experiment. Mr. White began passing their first tests out. He set Cassie's down first. She flipped it over and looked at it, 98. She had done some light studying, just because she didn't want to fail the class.

"Yo, ain't we takin' some field trip or some shit next week?" Jesse asked her.

"Uh...yeah, I think so. The green house, I believe. Why?"

"Just askin'," he shrugged. He didn't know why he wanted to know, he just found himself wanting to talk to her. She stood up beside him at the glass beakers. She had on the ugly lab glasses, but somehow, he thought that they actually worked on her. She was pretty, he wouldn't deny that. She had curly dark brown hair and dark blue eyes, her features were delicate and she had tanned skin. She just wasn't the type of girl that he usually went for. She was very smart and witty.

As she went to adjust the temperature on the burner, her side brushed his and he could faintly smell her floral perfume, it was sweet. He had smelled it a lot by this point, they worked together in this class the whole time and then in English, whenever they did partner work, they paired up because neither of them had anybody in that class that they were close to.

Mr. White came around and set Jesse's test down. "Mr. Pinkman, your class work is excellent, but your test wasn't quite there...Perhaps you should stay after school today and I can help you," he offered.

"I can help instead," Cassie interjected. She knew that Jesse wouldn't want to stay after with Walter, so she figured that she could help him out a bit.

"You don't have to," Walter told her. She shook her head.

"I'm his lab partner, right," she smiled at Jesse and he returned it slightly. "It's up to you though..."

"Yeah, she can teach me," he said. "I can give ya a ride home if ya need it too."

"That'd be great," Walter gave Cassie an unsure look before going back to his desk. He wasn't sure how he felt about the two hanging around each other. But, he knew that Cassie was wise and he didn't think that Jesse would have much of an influence on her.

Jesse and Cassie went to the library to study, they figured that it would be quieter there, but so far, all they had done was goof around. Every time Cassie would start to explain something, Jesse would rip off a piece of paper, roll it into a ball, and toss it at her in a playful manner.

"Pinkman," she warned, looking at him sternly.

"What?" he asked innocently.

"We've been in here for like two hours and what have you learned?"  
"Ya get annoyed easily," he smirked. She rolled her eyes and nudged his shoulder.

"I mean about Chemistry!"

"That would be nothing."

"You're such and ass," she sighed. She reached over him and turned his book to the right page. "Read from there to there and then we'll go over it," she told him.

"I don't want to," he whined.

"You're not five, Jesse," she said.

"I wish I was," he murmured.

She hadn't realized the close proximity of their seating arrangement until she went to cross her legs and hit his leg by mistake.

"I'm tryin' to read, dammit an' then you're gonna try and play footsie with me," Jesse stated, dramatically slamming his book closed.

"I was just moving my leg. You're just looking for an excuse to..." she trailed off, his face was maybe four inches from hers at that moment, and that space was closing. She had only kissed one guy in her life and it was a dare, so it didn't really could. Did she want to kiss Jesse? They had only really known each other for three weeks and all they had done was talking in two different classes. They didn't know each other well, but maybe it was enough.

Jesse took his time actually getting to the point of kissing her. He wanted her to stop thinking about it. He knew that he was at war with herself.

Finally, she decided after what seemed like ages. He grabbed her face with his hands. His kiss wasn't gentle or shy, it was much like him. His kiss was, to her, saying 'here I am, if you don't like me, fuck you'. But, she liked it, she liked it a lot actually.

"This is a library, not a flop house," somebody walked over and informed them. Jesse and Cassie pulled away from each other quickly and Cassie nearly fell off her chair.

"Shit," Jesse cursed, seeing the librarian.

"I suggest you both leave before I notify the principal or _your uncle_, Cassandra."

Cassie stood up quickly and threw her bag over one shoulder. Her cheeks were hot, it wasn't like her cheeks were just blushing, she felt like her whole body was.

"I'll drive ya home," Jesse said. He didn't really care about what the librarian said. It wasn't like he hadn't been in trouble before.

"Thanks," she said quickly, walking out of the school at a fast pace. She didn't want to Walter to know that she had been kissing anybody in the library because he would tell Skyler, and she didn't think that Skyler had ever liked her too much.

Jesse led the way to his car and they both got in. "You'll have to give me directions, I don't really know where I'm goin'."

"Turn right up here," she said. She took a deep breath and looked over at him. For whatever reason, she liked him and she liked kissing him. She could hear Walter's voice telling her that he wouldn't be good for her, that she needed to focus on her future, and that boys shouldn't be her main concern. But, she couldn't remember the last time she had done something just because she wanted to. "Jesse," she started.

"I get it, a'right? You're Miss Goodytwoshoes and you don't want to be associated with me, right?" He knew that tone, he was about to get lectured, he had heard it so many times by his mother before he went to live with his aunt Ginny.

"No."

"Because I-Did you just say no?"

"That's right," she replied. Cassie gained some confidence and reached over to take his hand. She gave him a light smile. "I just didn't want to hear a bunch of shit from Walter because the damn librarian told on us."

Jesse couldn't help but smile a little. Up until right after the kiss, he had assumed that she was secretly rebellious and didn't really care what people thought, and then after he thought that he was wrong, but it seemed like he had been right all along. He pulled the car over for a moment and kissed her again. This time, she kissed him back right away and brought her free hand up to tangle her fingers in his hair.

"You let her stay after school with a delinquent?" Skyler asked her husband in disbelief.

"Jesse isn't a bad kid, he just doesn't apply himself and he does things to make himself seem 'cool'," Walter explained.

"And you don't think that's going to rub off on Cassie?" Skyler questioned.

"She's got a good head on her shoulders, she's going to be fine."

"Until she starts smoking and gets pregnant!"

"She will be fine," he said again.

"I'm home," Cassie called, walking through the front door.

"What did I tell you?" Walter questioned. "How did it go?"

"It was good," Cassie said vaguely. She tried not to blush.

"Oh yeah? Did he learn much?"

"I think so, I hope so really."

"How much of the experiments does he do?"

"He does plenty of them, Uncle Walt," she replied. "Jesse isn't what you think he is, okay? I've got homework." She took her bag and went into her room.

"Are you about ready?" Walter asked his niece the next morning as they were eating breakfast.

"Um, actually I'm getting a ride from Jesse, he said he drives right by here for school anyway and we wanted to do a little bit of studying before the quiz in your class," Cassie said. It wasn't really a lie, but she doubted that they were actually study.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Skyler asked, giving her a pointed look.

"Why wouldn't it be? It's just a car ride to school," she replied in a slightly annoyed tone. A car horn went off outside and Cassie bid everyone else ado and left.

"Hey," Jesse smiled when Cassie got in the car.

"Hey," she smiled back. As much as they wanted to kiss each other, Cassie knew that Skyler was probably watching from the house.

Jesse smoked a cigarette as they made their way to the school. The radio was the only sound in the car, the two sat in a comfortable silence until Jesse parked the car outside of the school.

"I'll see you in class," Cassie said. Jesse nodded, he cupped the side of her face and gave her a kiss before they both got out of the car.

**AN: Hi everyone! This is my very first attempt at a Breaking Bad story. I just finished binge watching the fifth season and honestly, I love Jesse's character, I don't like Walt too much though-or Skyler. I hope you all liked this so far. This first chapter was a flashback the next one will probably be in present time and it will probably vary from then on, depending on my mood. Please don't be mean if you're going to review...I like reviews, and small critiquing is okay, but don't just write a whole review about how much you hate it or something. If you don't like it, you don't have to read it, lol. So anyway, thank you for reading :)**

**-Michelle**


	2. Chapter 2

**AN: Thank you so much to my first two reviewers, ****okgurl87**** and ****MyNameIsCassie****. I'm so glad that you guys are awesome, I hope to get more reviews and I want to say that for a while, it's going to be a little fast paced, it'll all slow down by about chapter four, next chapter will probably be a little bit slower too. But, this is all because I have ideas and I'm trying to get them out before I lose it. I hope that doesn't bother anybody too much.**

"I take it you have to go?" Cassie questioned Jesse as they lay in his bed together.

"Gotta make the dough," he said.

"I can get a second job, Jesse. I really don't want you getting arrested..." She didn't like that he was cooking meth. She had tried it with him before, he always had an influence on her, but she just wasn't into it like he was. She wasn't one to tell him what to do because he was his own person.

"No, we're doin' it safe, yo. I've been fine so far, haven't I?"

"So far," she emphasised.

"Cass, I'm doing this for us, yo. You want a family an' whatnot, right?"

"Eventually, but we can't have that if you get arrested."

"I won't, okay? Don't you have to get to work?" Cassie nodded and decided that she would have to get out of the comfortable bed with Jesse.

"I'm going to go shower," Cassie said, digging through her dresser to find clothes. She worked as a waitress. It wasn't exactly the most glamorous job and as her aunt and uncle put it, "it wasn't the best use of her intelligence". But, when the time came to choose between Walter and Skyler, who would've paid for her college, or being with Jesse, she chose him. She couldn't afford college on her own and into her senior year, her grades slipped quite a bit because she was just bored with school.

"Oh?" Jesse asked, putting his hands behind his head and looking at her with a smirk.

"Yeah," she grinned, walking into the bathroom and putting her clothes in the sink and beginning to brush out her hair. He climbed out of the bed in only a pair of boxers and turned the shower on. He knew that she liked to take really hot showers so he found the temperature that she would like.

"I love you, y'know that?" Jesse whispered, hugging her from behind and resting his head on her shoulder.

"And I love you," she replied. If she didn't love him, maybe it would've mattered to her that she didn't become a doctor, but she was happy with him. The day that they became lab partners was the best day of their life because it led to all of this.

Cassie walked outside on her break to where most people smoked, even though she didn't. Jesse still smoked cigarettes, which didn't bother her, but she didn't like smoking them herself. Her phone began to ring in her pocket and she answered it, glancing at number before hand, it was Jesse.

"Hello?"

"Hey, wanna get lunch?" he asked.

"I'm still at work..." I said. "I'm just on break right now."

"Tell your boss you don't feel good. You'll be happy if ya take off work."

"We need the money, don't we?" Cassie wanted to take off work to go hang out with Jesse. He was always more entertaining than work.

"No, I've got some money coming in. Stop worrying. Come on." How could she say no? Clearly, he had put some thought into whatever he thought it was.

"Okay, okay. Where do you want to meet?"

"Come pick me up," he said. I knew where the cook house was, we didn't keep secrets from each other.

"Alright, I'll be there soon."

"I love you," he said.

"I love you," she replied, smiling brightly. It always made her feel so happy to hear that. She walked into the Waffle house that she worked at and tried to look as sickly as possible. She walked over to Alan, her boss. "Alan, I'm not feeling too good, I don't think that I can keep working..." Alan was a tall man, kind of handsome, with dark brown eyes, and coal black hair.

"You don't look so good, either," Alan said sympathetically. Jesse and Alan hated each other. Jesse had nearly gotten her fired several times because he was jealous, but Cassie had to constantly remind him that he was the only man that she had ever loved or even really kissed for that matter. "Go ahead and take the rest of the day off then," he said. Jesse had also insisted that because Alan was so nice to her, he had a crush on her. She simply rolled her eyes at him because she disagreed.

She drove to the cook house and parked by the curb. She didn't honk because she didn't want to draw attention to the house. So, she called Jesse to let him know that she was out there.

"Yo," he answered.

"I'm outside."

"Be right out."

"Kay." Jesse came jogging out and got in the passenger seat. As soon as he sat down, he pulled her into a loving kiss.

"Pick anywhere ya want for lunch," he said.

"Really?" Cassie asked, he nodded in response. "Okay, how about that little diner outside of town?" she suggested. He smiled, they had history with that place. It was where they had gone on what they both considered to be their first date.

"Yo, that place sounds perfect."

When they walked into the diner, they sat at their usual table, it was habit in a way.

"Wow, can you believe that it's been six years?" Cassie asked.

He shook his head and reached into his pocket. He was kind of surprised that he hadn't done this sooner, but in a way he wasn't. "I'm glad that ya picked this place..." Jesse said.

"Me too, it's always good."

"Yeah, an' cuz I've got somethin' to ask you."

"What?" she asked, looking at him, meeting his bright blue eyes.

Jesse set the little black box on the table and opened it. "Marry me?"

Cassie was shocked, she and Jesse had agreed to wait a little while to get married and whatnot. "Jesse!" she exclaimed. "I-Oh my God!" She then realized she hadn't exactly answered him. "Yes! I'll marry you!" She jumped up from her seat and he did too, she kissed him deeply, happy to have a fiance.

After their kiss, he picked up the ring and slid it up on her finger. It fit perfectly.

"You're the best," she murmured against his lips.

As Cassie drove Jesse back to the cook house, she admired her ring. The diamond wasn't big but it wasn't what she called small either. The band around it was silver, and she loved her ring.

"I got it engraved too, yo," Jesse said, noticing his fiancée looking at her ring.

"You did?" she slipped it off her finger as she stopped at a red light. 'Jesse and Cassie for always' it said. She smiled, loving it more than anything. He could be so sweet sometimes, he had that thug exterior but he wasn't that guy. "This is so perfect. I love it."

"I'm glad," he grinned. She pulled up onto the street where the cook house was but she saw all of these flashing lights and there were huge DEA vans.

"Jesse..." Cassie said quietly. "What the hell? I thought...I thought that you said you'd be fine...I..."

"I still am. Pull up to my car an' let me out, I'll meet ya back home."

"Oh-kay..." she said nervously, he gave her a lingering glance and ran over to his car and jumped in. She drove quickly back to their house-but not too quickly as to get pulled over.

She couldn't imagine if she hadn't agreed to go to lunch with him. He would've been arrested and taken in by the DEA and then he would've ended up in prison and...and...She couldn't even imagine being without Jesse, not after their six years together.

She pulled into the driveway a moment before Jesse did and she hurried into the house, he followed behind her, it was only then that the tears started falling down her cheeks. She had kept her cool up to this point, but seeing Jesse in front of her, safe made her heart hurt because she knew what couldn't happened today.

"Shh..." he pulled her to him and allowed her to cry. He wasn't the best at this, she usually didn't cry around him, but it happened, so he had to roll with it.

"You could've been arrested, Jesse. Do you realize that?"

"I wasn't," he said.

"You've gotta stop...No more of this Goddamn cooking meth. I love you and I know that you've gotta make your own choices...but I can't do it. I can't have my fiance getting arrested...and being locked up in prison."

"Okay," he agreed. He would have to find some other way to make money, he guessed. He could do it, couldn't he?

**AN: This one was shorter than the other chapter, sorry! I got in kind of a hurry and then I wasn't sure where to end it and this just seemed like the best stopping place. Thank you to everyone that reviewed, faved, or followed! You're awesome! Reviews especially motivate me! **


	3. Chapter 3

**September 13, 2002**

"How does it feel to be eighteen?" Cassie asked Jesse as she sat down in the passenger seat of his car. He just shrugged. It wasn't much different from being seventeen, really. Now, he could legally by cigarettes but that was pretty much the only difference. Instead of telling her that it didn't really make a difference, he pulled her in for a kiss. They had been 'dating' for about three weeks now. They had gone on one date so far. They had gone to a little diner down the street from his house for dinner one night, but that had been it. It was still dating by high school standards though.

"You're comin' over after school, right?" he asked. They had planned to just go to his aunt's house and watch movies instead of have an actual birthday party.

"Yep, I told Walt and Skyler that I'm going to Kim's house for a sleepover with her and Maggie."

"Are they coverin' for ya?"

"As soon as I ask them," she smiled. This wasn't something she would've done three weeks earlier. She wouldn't have even considered lying to her aunt and uncle, but something about Jesse made it easy to lie to them. She realized how overbearing they could be.

Jesse drove his car to school while having an idle conversation with Cassie. He was glad that of all people, she became his lab partner three weeks ago.

Once they arrived at the school, they exited the car and Jesse took her hand in his as they walked down the hallway. All of the other students knew that they were dating but they had yet to tell Walter and Skyler because they knew what the reaction would be. Cassie happened to run into Kim in the hallway.

"You can go ahead to your locker and whatever if you want," Cassie suggested to Jesse.

"Don' matter," he shrugged, staying put. He didn't care if he was late to class, he never had.

"So Kim," Cassie started, looking at her friend that she had been close to since kindergarten. Kim was a lot taller than Cassie and even a little taller than Jesse. Cassie was only 5'2" and Jesse was 5'8", but Kim was 5'9" and she had long blonde hair and dark green eyes. "Today is Jesse's birthday and..."

"You wanna know if I'll cover for you?" Kim questioned, raising an eyebrow. She had always had this innate power to know what Cassie was thinking.

"Yeah, actually," the shorter brunette replied. "If you wouldn't mind."

"Nah, Maggie was going to come over tonight anyway, I would've invited you but I figured that you would want to spend time with your _boyfriend_," Kim grinned. Cassie hadn't ever had a boyfriend and Kim thought it was kind of funny that it was Jesse Pinkman, the trouble maker.

"Thanks Kim," Cassie smiled.

"You, take care of her," she gave a pointed look to Jesse as the warning bell for class rang.

Jesse and Cassie walked into class about a minute late and Mr. White gave them an annoyed look. He knew exactly what was going on between the two of them, it was obvious. And, kids talked all the time, he had heard all of the gossip on the first day that Cassie rode with Jesse to school and how they kissed in the parking lot. He didn't say anything to her because he knew how she was, if she thought she was sneaking around, it made things a lot easier for him to know what was going on.

"Mr. Pinkman, Miss White," he said, looking at them them carefully. "Would you mind telling the class why you were late?" he questioned. It was standard for him to do this when people were late to his class.

"My locker got stuck and Jesse was helping me," Cassie said, lying through her teeth.

"Did you get a pass from the teacher that was near your locker?" he asked.

"No, I figured that we shouldn't disrupt somebody else's class and you wanted us to get here as quick as possible," Cassie said. There was a silent battle going on between the two Whites. Walter finally gave in and sighed.

"Okay, I will be passing back everybody's tests from last week. I will be calling everybody back into my office to talk about your grades in my class so far. I'll have a worksheet out here for you all to do while I'm talking to everyone else. You may work with your lab partner and that's it."

Walter passed out the worksheets and called Tyler Anderson back to his office first before disappearing back there and closing the door behind them.

"Think he believed ya?" Jesse asked Cassie in a hushed voice.

"No. I'm probably going to hear about it when I go back there though," she said with a frown. "He knows that I know the rules and I know him and he's one to follow the rules. Let's just get this worksheet down," she sighed.

"Pinkman," Walter called about a half an hour later. Jesse got up from his table and walked into Mr. White's office. He took a seat in the empty chair. "68," Walter said, handing Jesse his test from the week before. "What happened to to studying with my niece?" he asked in an even tone.

"We've been studyin', yo. This just don't make any since," he said.

"I'm going to be honest with you, Jesse. If, on your next test, you can get a 90, I will continue to pretend that I don't know what's going on between you and my niece."

"You know 'bout that?" Jesse asked.

"Of course I know," Walter said simply. "You're barely passing right now and that's only because of the labs. But I'm serious about turning a blind eye if you can get a 90 on the next test."

Jesse had heard lots of things about Mr. White in the last few weeks that he didn't like. According to Cassie, everything that he did, there was always an ulterior motive. He never had just one reason for doing something, he knew that this was probably one of those situations.

When it was Cassie's turn to go into Walter's office, she steeled herself for the lecture she was bound to get. She lat down in the chair in front of his desk and crossed her legs.

"You're doing quite well in this class, Cassie," he said, his voice professional. "You got a 95% on your last test and overall, you have a 97% in the class. Keep it up."

She was shocked. She completely expected for Walter to yell at her and tell her that she was a liar, but it never happened.

When Cassie and Jesse arrived at his aunt's house, Jesse led the way up to Ginny's room.

"Aunt Ginny," he knocked.

"Come in," she called. On the way there, Jesse had explained that Ginny spent most of her time resting because she had cancer.

"This is my girlfriend, Cassie. Cass, this is my aunt Ginny."

"Nice to meet you," Cassie smiled, walking over to her.

"This is the girl you were telling me about?" Ginny asked. Jesse nodded, smiling a little. "This boy doesn't shut up about you," she smiled.

"Good things, I hope," she sent a look over her shoulder to Jesse, not only had she just been referred to as his 'girlfriend'-they hadn't used that title before, but she also just learned that he talked about her a lot.

"Always."

"Is it okay if we watch a couple movies downstairs?" Jesse asked his aunt. Cassie couldn't help but notice his different he was towards her, it was clear that Jesse held a lot of respect for his aunt. Usually, towards authority figures, he had a 'fuck you' attitude.

"Sure, just keep the noise down, I'm just going to rest."

"Do ya want me to bring you anything?" She shook her head by smiled at him.

"You two have fun," she said softly.

"It was really nice meeting you, Ginny," Cassie said, really meaning it. She seemed so sweet, it was no wonder that Jesse respected her.

Once they were back downstairs, Cassie walked over to her school bag and grabbed Jesse's present. He had told her not to get him anything because he didn't really want anything, but he had to get him something. "Here, I can't believe that I lugged it around all day," she smiled, holding out the gift in blue wrapping paper. It wasn't that the gift was heavy, it was just rather large. She had gone to the store that night before just for him. She had her license, but she didn't have a car of her own, so she used Walter's.

"I said I didn't want nothin'," he said.

"I know, but I couldn't just not give you anything," she said, digging through her bag to find the pair of flannel pajama pants that she had put in there this morning. Jesse slowly tore the paper off and found a yellow bag under it. Funyuns. He remembered on the first day of school when she asked what his favorite food was for that little questionnaire thing, he had replied funyuns and she had said waffles.

"Thanks, these're awesome," Jesse said, unable to help the smile on his face.

"I'm glad you like them," she turned to face him with her flannel pajama bottoms in her hand. It was only then that she realized that she would be staying the night with him...She didn't know how she felt about that or what would happen as a result, but it all made her feel very nervous. "Where's the bathroom so that I can go change?" she asked. She didn't want to continue wearing her jeans, she wanted to just be comfortable.

"Down the hall an' to the right," he replied. I'm gonna order the pizza."

Cassie walked across the wood floor and into the bathroom. It was just a standard bathroom; there was a toilet, a sink with a mirror, and a shower. She changed out of her blue jeans and into the pj bottoms, she took her dark, curly hair down from the ponytail she had it in and took a deep breath. Thoughts of spending the whole night here with Jesse did make her a little nervous because she hadn't even had a boyfriend before and she didn't know about the kind of stuff guys and girls did while they were alone. She had only really been around Jesse when they were at school or studying at the library. And, the only time that they were fully alone was when they were driving to and from school. Sure, there were some kisses but not much else. She sighed, shook out her hair so that it could lay naturally, and walked back into the living room/kitchen area.

"Pizza's ordered," he announced. "Should be here in like twenty minutes."

"Okay," she said smiling at him a little bit. "So what movies do you got?"

"Over here," he led her to the space beside the TV. She sat on the floor and began looking through them.

Jesse had never seen her in her relaxed clothes. He thought that she looked amazing with her hair down like and of all the girls, she looked the best without any make up and she certainly made the pajama bottoms work.

"Do you wanna watch something scary or something funny?" Cassie asked, meeting his eyes as he sat beside her on the floor. Instead of answering, he took her face in his hands and kissed her deeply. Her lips twitched upward, signifying that she was smiling.

Cassie had expected him to just give her an answer, but she wouldn't argue with kissing him instead. His hand came up and rested on the upper portion of her side to deepen their kiss. His other hand was holding her her curly hair.

"Ya can pick whatever you want," Jesse said in a whispered, breathless tone. "Imma go change my clothes," he said, standing up from the floor.

"I don't know what to pick," she complained, sighing. She laid down on the floor. Jesse hadn't yet gone to his room to change, so he was there long enough to see her hair spread around her head all over the floor. "Help me up," she said, holding her hands up for him to pull her to her feet.

They decided to watch one of the scary movies while they ate their pizza. But, neither of them were paying much attention to the movie. Cassie was too busy worrying herself to death about the possibilities of what could happen that night and Jesse was too distracted by the fact that Cassie kept moving her thumb across his side that was only covered by his shirt as his arm was around her shoulders and her head rested on his chest with their feet resting on the coffee table. They had finished their pizza a while ago so they were both simply pretending to watch the movie.

Cassie let out a contented sigh before deciding that she had to know, otherwise she wouldn't be able to enjoy her time with Jesse. "What're the sleeping arrangements tonight?" she asked.

"What do you want 'em to be?" he asked. Sure, he would want her to sleep in his room, but do so much sleeping. But, he wasn't going to push her into anything because he liked her.

"I-I don't know," she admitted, biting her lip. She hadn't ever been in this predicament before. She had stayed at her friends' houses, but all of them were girls and it wasn't the same as sharing a bed with Jesse.

"We'll figure it out," he said. "Are ya gettin' tired?" he asked.

"It's not even eight, is it?" she asked. Somehow, she was a little tired. It probably had something to do with the fact that she was very comfortable resting on Jesse.

"Dunno. Clock's in the kitchen," he replied.

"Hmm," she said. "I'll go check," she picked up the pizza box and their two glasses, taking them with her. She was always kind of a neat freak. She had always tried to keep things organized.

Once in the kitchen, she rinsed out the glasses, cleaning them with a little dish soap and put them in the dish drainer by the kitchen sink. She was able to fit the pizza box in the fridge right as Jesse came in.

"You don' have to clean up, y'know."

"I don't mind," she replied. She then remembered the cake that she had made earlier, it just needed iced. Jesse didn't know about it, he had taken a shower a while ago and she made it then. It had been cooling ever since and he hadn't noticed it sitting on the stove. "Would you mind to get my bag from upstairs in your room?" she asked. "My school one..." She could ice it in that time, she hoped anyway.

He raised an eyebrow at her, looking at her suspiciously before nodding. She pulled the chocolate icing and quickly spread it over the cake. She pulled out the candles that she had hid in the silverware drawer earlier and put the one and the eight on it.

"Why was this under my bed?" he asked.

"Happy Birthday!" she put the cake at the end of the counter. "Can I barrow your lighter?"

"You made me a cake?"

"You can't have a birthday without a cake," she said smiling at him a little. He gave her a small smile and fished into his sweatpants pocket and handed it to her. She lit the candles-after a few attempts with the lighter. "Make a wish, Jesse."

**AN: Since I've updated everyday since I started this, and I've continued to get reviews...I will make everybody a deal for now. As long as I'm a head and I don't have any surprise homework, I'll update everyday, so long as I continue to get reviews. I'm a bit of a review junkie and they just make my day so then you'll be getting something in return too!**


	4. Chapter 4

**AN: Yet another snow day today...I'm so sick of it! And, I'm pretty sure that I'm gonna be snowed in this weekend! Why can't summer be here already! But, on the bright side for you all, I'm going to end up using that time to work on this story most likely. **

"Honey, there's a car in the driveway..." Cassie called to Jesse as she was walking through the living room and noticed the headlights shining through the window.

"What kind?" he asked, making his way from the kitchen to where she was standing.

"I can't tell...Do you think that it could be-"

"It's not," he said, knowing that she was going to ask if it was DEA.

"Imma find out who it is though," he said, heading through the door.

"Jesse, I'm going with you."

"Stay here," he said, it could be dangerous.

"If it's something bad, I'm screwed no matter what. I'm walking out with you," she said, not backing down.

"Alright," he sighed, locking his jaw in annoyance. He hated her stubbornness sometimes. They both walked out to the driveway where a white Aztec was parked.

"That's my uncle's car," Cassie whispered.

"Jesse Pinkman," Walter's voice called.

"What the hell do you want?"

"I want your help."

"Why would I help you?" Jesse asked bitterly. He was still pissed that Walter and Skyler had simply shunned Cassie from their lives just because she didn't want to go to college and chose to live with Jesse instead.

"Because if you don't, I'll turn you in to the DEA," Walter came into view and saw Cassie standing next to Jesse.

"It's nice to see you," he said, his tone even.

"I wish I could say the same," Cassie said, wrapping her hands around Jesse's arm for warmth. She had always hated how cold New Mexico could get at night. "The circumstances could be better, y'know? You could like not be trying to turn my _fiance _in to the DEA, you asshole."

"Your _fiance_ could also not be cooking methamphetamine, but then I wouldn't be there. Jesse, help me cook and I won't turn you in, it's simple."

"I'm outta the business, yo," Jesse replied. He had promised Cassie that he would quit.

"You're out of the business?" Walt asked incredulously.

"He did it as a favor to me," Cassie spoke up. "So you're going to ruin the future that we could have just because you want to cook meth for whatever reason?"

"My family needs the money, I'm sure the both of you know what that's like. Besides, if you don't help me, you're not going to get that family. I will make one phone call to Hank and be done with all of this."

Jesse looked at Cassie, meeting her gray eyes with his bright blue ones before giving her a sad smile. "Fine, you make whatever money that you need and we the hell out of it," Jesse said. He didn't want to go to jail, he wanted to be here with Cassie and if working with Walter was the only way to do that, he would.

"Jesse," Cassie looked at him sadly. He gave her a look that said that they would discuss it later.

"Alright, yo, I said I'd help ya, now you can leave." Jesse said.

"Where are we going to cook?" Walter asked. Cassie let out a sigh, he wasn't cut out for this stuff and she knew it. "Here?"

"In our house? You think that's the best idea?" Cassie snapped. Jesse always had a rule when it came to making the illegal drug, at all times, it was at least fifteen miles from the house, and that was just the minimum. Usually, it was a lot farther away.

"Doesn't your friend have that RV for sale?" Cassie asked Jesse.

She was a genus. He loved her for it, too. "Yeah, yo we'll have like a mobile lab!"

"He wants $10,000," Cassie said, looking to her uncle. "This is your idea, you pay." If she couldn't keep Jesse out of the business, the least she could do was try to make sure that Walter didn't take advantage of Jesse.

"I don't know if I have that much."

"Then figure it out!"

Jesse liked the side of Cassie where she was outspoken for what she believed in. He didn't have a problem allowing her to make all of the deals here.

"Yo, she's right," Jesse agreed. "You've got your answer, you can leave now, bitch." With that, he turned around and walked back into the house with Cassie.

"How do we know that's not a trap?" she asked once the door closed.

"Guess we'll find out," he said, throwing his hands up in the air. "I don't know what you want me to do, Cassie. Shouldn't I at least get some damn credit for saying that I would quit? This is out of my control!"

"I-I know...But I don't think that this is a good idea..."

"And you think I do? Yeah, let's go off and cook meth with your uncle, that sounds like fun!"

"This is not how things are supposed to be...I just..."

"You just what? Wish you would've chose college over me?"

"Jesse no! I don't wish that!"

"Maybe you should. Then you could've married some Goddamn doctor or somebody that wouldn't have to sell drugs to make money...Somebody that could afford a better ring!"

"I love the ring and I would love you if we lived in boxes! I don't want to marry a doctor! I want you!"

"Bullshit, nobody wants to be with a meth dealer."

Jesse got like this sometimes, Cassie knew that he had his moods where he thought that he wasn't good enough. But, she never ever thought that. She loved him no matter what.

"I do. This was supposed to be a good day, Jesse. Do you want to know what I had planned for when we got home today?" Cassie asked him. He looked up at her but didn't say anything. "I planned on coming home, making your favorite dinner and then having some _us_ time," she smiled, walking over to him with a smirk on her face. "Jesse Pinkman, I love you." Though he didn't respond to her, she wrapped her arms around his neck and looked up at him with a loving smile. "It's probably too late to make dinner but..." she bit her lip and smiled a little bit.

Cassie was the only one that had never looked at him and told him that he wasn't good enough for something, she was the only one that had always loved him, and she was the only one that continued to stick by him though all of his shit. He didn't know what he would do without her. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pressed a kiss to her lips.

"I love you too," he replied.

"Then let's go upstairs, fiance of mine."

He slid his hands down to right below her butt and lifted her up. She squealed in surprise before giggling, she wrapped her legs around his waist. He carried her upstairs to their bedroom.

"You wouldn't believe who I ran into today," Walter said casually as he and Skyler sat in their bed that evening.

"Who?" she asked curiously.

"Cassie."  
"How is she?"

"She still looks like herself...but she's engaged..."

"To that...Jesse?"

Walter nodded. "She seems happy with him..."

"What did she say to you?"

"Not much. I think she's still pissed at us, but I guess I understand...maybe we were too hard on her. I mean if somebody had done that to us way back when...wouldn't we have made the same choice?"

"I guess you're right, but she wouldn't forgive us now and we were just trying to do what was right for her."

"It wasn't really our place to decide what was right for her, looking back on it..."

"Oh my God," Jesse said, lying on his back.

"What?" Cassie questioned, using her elbow to prop herself up and look at him with the moonlight shining in from the bedroom window. She had the sheet covering her chest, even though she didn't really need it.

"You're fucking amazing, baby," he said. Usually, he didn't use terms of endearment, but Cassie loved it when he did, so she smiled widely.

"Mm, so're you," she replied lying back down. She had almost forgotten all of the shit that had happened that day. Almost. She wished that she could just forget it. She wished that she could remember today as the day she got engaged to the love of her life and that be the end of it. But, it was also the day that she had nearly lost him to the DEA and the day he made a deal with the devil-she wouldn't know that's what it truly was until much later though. For now, he had simply made a deal with her uncle that for some unknown reason wanted to cook meth.

"Let's get some sleep," he suggested. If tomorrow's anythin' like today, we're gonna need it."

"Mm," she said, cuddling up to him.

As Jesse tried to fall asleep, he continued to think about how Cassie was the only one there for him. He also realized that he couldn't screw that up. He couldn't make her lose faith in him. He wanted to just lay there with her for the rest of time, if he could. She made everything better. She always made him try to see the good in himself, even his own parents didn't do that. They looked down at him just like everybody else. Even if it was true that he did and sold drugs, Cassie would never dream of calling him a 'meth-head dealer' or any of that.

"Jesse," he heard her whisper. He moved a little to look at her face but saw that her eyes were closed and he realized that she was asleep. From time to time, she would talk in her sleep. It was either a really good dream or a really bad one.

"Yeah?" he questioned, wondering if her dream state could hear him. But, she didn't say anything more, she just let out a little 'hmm' and moved as close to him as she could get.

_Ring. Ring. Ring._

Jesse was the first to wake by the sound, he figured that it was his cell phone, so he reached for it on his table, but found that it wasn't the source.

"Cass," he whispered,

"What the fuck? What time is it?" he rarely heard her cuss, it just wasn't something that she usually did. But, it did happen from time to time.

"Almost nine... Your phone's ringing."

"Dammit," she blindly reached over onto her wooden table and flipped her phone open to answer the call. "Hello?" she asked groggily. She was so tired this morning, usually, she was up by now, yesterday being the exception. Usually, she was dressed, showered, and ready for the day. But, today she just felt like crap.

"Cassie, are you feeling any better today?" Alan, her boss asked. At first, she was confused, but then she remembered that she had faked sick to hang out with Jesse yesterday.

"Uh...kinda," she replied. Technically, she wasn't feeling better than she had yesterday. "What time am I supposed to be in?"

"You were supposed to be in at eight...I just thought that it was odd you hadn't called in..."

"Oh shit...I uh...I'll be down there in thirty-"

"If you're not well, don't worry about it. I called Pam in to cover your shift. Rest and be in tomorrow at eight, okay?"

"Okay, thank you..." she replied, closing the phone and putting it on her table. She went back to her previous position in the bed with Jesse.

"What was that 'bout?"

"Alan was calling to see if I was going to be at work..."

"Are you."

"No. I feel like I've been ran over by a bus...Let me sleep..." She didn't feel good other than being incredibly fatigued. Her muscles were achy and her throat was sore. She was even a little nauseous.

"Want me to make ya something?" he asked. He was actually pretty good when she was sick. He made her soup and tried his best to do whatever he could.

"I want sleep," she said in response.

"Do you want me to stay or go?" But, she was already asleep. She was using his chest as a pillow and had her arm thrown over him, he couldn't get up without waking her, so he decided to simply fall back asleep with her for a while.

The ringing woke Jesse again, but Cassie was already up. Her phone was the one ringing-again. He reached over and answered it.

"Yo?"

"Jesse?" a man's voice asked.

"Who the hell's this?"

"Walter White. I wanted to talk to you anyway. I need to meet up with you to further discuss things."

Jesse groaned. "Where do you want me to meet you?"

"My bank, Cassie knows where it is," Walter said, hanging up. Jesse wanted to toss his phone across the room. He didn't want to get up. "Cass," he called from the bed. The bedroom door was closed and so was the bathroom, but in that house, it was easy to hear people in different rooms.

"I'm in here," her voice sounded muffled and she sounded groggy. She opened the bathroom door and had to use the wall for support.

"You okay?"

"Not really," she murmured. "What did you want?"

"Mr. White called," Jesse groaned. "He wants me to meet him at his bank...he said you know where it's at."

"Give me a minute..." she retreated back into the bathroom and pulled her hair back into a ponytail. She didn't feel good enough for much else. She then rinsed her face off with some warm water, trying to wake herself up a little bit. But, none to her avail, she looked the same as she had before. Her gray eyes looked every bit as sleepy as they had before.

"You don't have to go, you can just like, write down the directions," he offered. She visibly looked very ill.

"No...I'm fine."

"Ya sure don't look it," he said. "Lay down 'er something." She shook her head and walked back into the bedroom. She was wearing a pair of black sweatpants and a T-shirt.

"Can I barrow a sweatshirt?" she asked Jesse, who simply nodded. She knew that she didn't have to ask, but she seemed to always anyway. She had been wearing his oversized sweatshirts since high school. She said that they were comfortable and warm.

Cassie put on her favorite one of Jesse's sweatshirts. It was black and zipped up. She sniffed the side of it, knowing that it would smell like his cologne that somehow mixed perfectly with his cigarette smoke.

"Ya sure you're okay to go?" he asked, looking at her seriously. She nodded and gave him the biggest smile that she could muster. "Okay..."

**AN: Please review! They're fantastic! Thank you guys! **


	5. Chapter 5

**AN: I'll warn you now, the first part isn't very descriptive. I'm sorry but I don't really know how to write that sort of thing and it's out of my comfort zone. **

**September 13, 2002**

The night went on, Jesse and Cassie decided to watch another movie, or attempt to anyway. This time, instead of their thoughts being their distraction, it was each other. First, Jesse had been the one to distract Cassie. She was innocently sitting there, her legs tucked under her, trying to watch the movie. But, Jesse decided that he wanted to mess with her hair-well that was how it started. She was simply letting him do that until he pressed a kiss to her neck. He hadn't ever done that before, so she looked at him, slightly taken aback.

"Relax," he told her. "Watch the movie."

She tried, but his facial stubble ticked her neck as he continued to kiss her there. Strangely, she liked it, she liked the feel of his lips on her neck. She always thought that when she saw couples kissing each on their necks that they were weird or something, but now she understood.

"Y'know it's kinda..." she trailed off as he kissed a more sensitive part of her neck.

Jesse smirked against her neck as he started lightly sucking on one particular part of her neck. She let out the smallest of whimpers and his smile widened a bit. After a few more moments, he moved his lips from her neck up her jaw, her cheek, and eventually to her lips. She smiled a little, but that little nagging voice was telling her to stop this that there could be consequences. But, the part of her that she had repressed for all of her life, was telling her to take a chance and to tell him to take her upstairs to his bedroom. She didn't know which voice to listen to. They were arguing back and forth and she couldn't tell which side was winning.

"You can tell me to stop, if you want me to," Jesse said, looking at her seriously with his bright blue eyes. She looked at him and bit her lip, deciding.

He could tell that she was having an internal conflict with herself even why they were kissing.

"If we do _this_," she said, making her choice. "Are you going to break up with me tomorrow?" It happened all of the time in their school, it even happened to one of her closest friends, Maggie. Maggie and her boyfriend, Leo, had been dating for nearly a year, so who was to say that Jesse would be different? They had only been together for three weeks.

"No," he said honestly. He hadn't planned on breaking up with her because of this at all. He had been one of those guys that broke up with a girl after they got what they wanted, but for some reason, Cassie was different. She wasn't just a nice body and a pretty face. She accepted him.

"Okay," she let out a sigh before kissing him.

So that was what it was like, Cassie realized. She had been worried out of her mind for this day. She didn't know if she was good at it, she would have to rely on Jesse for that information later on, she was too afraid to ask right now. She was afraid to speak, even. She didn't know whether or not Jesse was asleep beside her.

"Are you cold?" he asked, making her realize that he was awake.

"Um, maybe a little bit," she replied, blushing. It may have had something to do with the fact that she wasn't clothed.

"Here," he reached to the cold wood floor and picked up his shirt and tossed it to her. She slipped it on and shivered.

"This is colder than I was before," Cassie told Jesse. She had always hated how cold the desert got.

"You can move closer to me," she was at the other side of the bed pretty much. He was used to girls wanting to cuddle after being intimate.

"Oh," she blushed, sliding closer to him. She rolled over to face him, being as she typically slept on her left side anyway, and he staying lying on his back. He wrapped one of his warm arms around her. She couldn't help but cuddle closer to him, she didn't understand how he was so warm! "How did you know I was cold?"

"Just a guess..." he said. He didn't know that she was cold, but he knew how his room got at night and he didn't want her to freeze so he figured that he could prevent that by warming her up now.

"Good night, Jesse," she replied, her voice quiet, she was already drifting to sleep, now that she felt safe in assuming that she hadn't done something terribly wrong.

"Night, Cass." He didn't know why, but he felt like 'Cass' should be what he called her.

"We're going to have to tell Walter and Skyler sooner or later," Cassie sighed as she made eggs the next morning.

"Mr. White already knows, yo," Jesse said. Cassie looked at him over her shoulder, slightly confused.

"Uh, what? How?"

"Dunno. He told me if I get a 90 on the next test then he'll pretend he doesn't know."

"Oh my God, Jesse, I've gotta go. He knows I'm here. If he knows that, I guarantee he's going to do something sneaky and like try to pick me up at Kim's or something. Tell Ginny I said bye and that it was nice to meet her," she hurried upstairs and changed out of her PJ bottoms and into a pair of jeans.

"How the hell are you gonna get there?" he asked her. She buttoned her jeans and realized the flaw in her plan.

"I'll walk. It's not _that_ far..."

"I'll drive you," he said. He wasn't going to let her just walk there.

"And let Walter see your car?"

"You're paranoid."

"You don't know him like I do, Jesse. Skyler's worse, but Walter is pretty bad...Just..." She swore she had just seen Walter's white car drive past the Jesse's house though the window, but she couldn't be sure.

"Nobody's that crazy, yo."

"You wanna bet? If they find out that I was here last night, I'm dead and so are you. They will physically murder us, trust me."

"We'll be fine," Jesse assured her. He doubted that Mr. White was that crazy.

"Fine, but it's going to be your fault."

"Then I guess we better say our goodbyes here," he smirked, pulling her in for a kiss. "You made my birthday the best one yet."

She looked at him for a moment before smiling. "I hope I'm wrong about my uncle..." She said. She wanted so badly to be wrong. She would tell Walter and Skyler eventually, but she wanted it to be on her own terms, but she supposed that she should've thought about that before she went over to Jesse's house behind her back.

Even if she wasn't wrong and Mr. White decided to keep them away from each other, Jesse wouldn't make it that simple. There was still school, he couldn't separate them there.

Cassie slung her bag over her shoulder and they walked downstairs and out the front door. Jesse looked to the street, beyond the iron gate to see a white vehicle parked there. He touched Cassie's shoulder and she looked up and her face was full of horror.

"Cassandra Annmarie White," Walter said, his voice calm, but clearly angry.

"Uncle Walter I can-" She decided to try to play the innocent card, it couldn't hurt, right?

"You can what? Explain to me that you lied to me and your aunt to come stay the night with _him_?"

"Yeah, actually, that's exactly it!" If she couldn't be innocent, she would be bluntly honest instead. She was going to be in big trouble no matter what.

"Not going to try to lie your way out of this one?"

"You already know the truth, what's the point? So, I spent the night with _Jesse_, not _him_, he has a name, _Walter_. Besides, I'm going to be an adult in a year and a half, I think I'm old enough to make my own decisions!"

"You're sixteen, Cassandra! You're no where near old enough to make your own choices!" This was the loudest that Cassie had ever heard Walt be.

"My name is Cassie. Stop with this 'Cassandra' crap. You know that I hate it." She could accept it when they were in class because she didn't want to make it even more obvious that she was related to Walter.

"It doesn't matter what your name is! Just get in the car," he said, his tone going back down to the even level it usually stayed at. Cassie looked at Jesse and frowned. She knew that she didn't have a choice.

"I'll see you at school," she whispered.

He nodded, wishing that he could do more than that. He wanted to pull her to him and tell her that she could just stay with him forever and they wouldn't have to worry about it. But, he knew that couldn't happen because she wasn't eighteen and she wouldn't be for, like she had said, a year and a half. So, he couldn't do anything. He was powerless because Walter was her legal guardian. Jesse just had to keep in mind that he couldn't keep them away from each other. They would see each other, no matter what he did.

**AN: I'm sorry it was short. I have trouble seeing Walter as just an average guy now...After everything that he did to poor Jesse, especially in season 5, I feel like he would've always had that side to him. Walter couldn't have just turned evil over night, could he? So, to me, he's showing his true colors around Cassie a little bit, make sense? Happy Friday! Please review :) **


	6. Chapter 6

"Here is $7,000 dollars. It is all I have," Walter said, walking over to Jesse and Cassie while they were sitting in the car. Jesse held the money and looked at Walter like he was crazy.

"Yo, my guy wants $10,000, what the hell am I supposed to do with this shit?" Jesse questioned.

"You're a drug dealer. Figure it out, barter."

"He's such an asshole," Cassie murmured, leaning her head against the window. She just felt like curling into a ball and sleeping for a year.

"No shit! Fuck, how the hell am I supposed to-ugh!" he slammed his hands against the steering wheel.

"We'll figure it out...we always do..." was Cassie's only reply. When she was sick, she wasn't her typical spunky, stubborn, self. She didn't bother arguing and she didn't have much of an opinion on anything. It was like she shut down.

"I'll take ya home, then we'll figure it out," he said, his tone becoming softer.

"Mm hmm," she murmured. She could fall asleep right there in the car.

"Do you want me to stop and get ya somethin'?" Jesse offered, looking over at her seriously. She shook her head and pulled his sweatshirt closer to her, trying to stay warm.

Even though Jesse wasn't cold, he turned on the heat in his car just for her. "You'll burn up," she said softly.

"You'll freeze without it," was his only reply as he drove back to their house.

Because he had been trying to kick his meth habit, he had been chain smoking and going out of his mind. He lit up his fourth cigarette since he'd woken up and cracked the window the tiniest bit to smoke it. He had grown so used to being able to do meth whenever he liked that it was like his body needed it to survive. But, he had promised Cassie, so he was going to try his hardest to actually quit. He hated the fear that she had of losing him and he didn't want her to have to experience that. He thought the world of her and he didn't want to see her go though any pain of suffering, especially because of him. He had put that ring on her finger, and to her, that meant that he would do anything in the world for her. Before she came along, he hadn't ever even thought of the future, let alone getting married. He never wanted to end up like his parents. They were snooty and kind of annoying to him. He didn't know if marriage did that to everyone, but he didn't want to take the risk.

Eventually, Jesse pulled into the driveway at their house and noticed that Cassie was in a pretty deep sleep against the car window. He carefully opened her door and planned on carrying her inside, but she woke up quickly and sighed. Her gray eyes looked like they could use the sleep, he could tell that she was still dead tired.

"You could've just woken me up," she said. She went to climb out of the car, but she felt light headed. He held out a hand to her and she accepted it. He pulled her to her feet and assisted her into the house.

Cassie hated feeling weak. She loved that Jesse was willing to be her crutch, but she didn't want him to be. Even as a kid, she tried to be independent. Which, made her remember something from kindergarten.

"You were in my kindergarten class, weren't you?" she asked as they went into the living room and sat down. "Ms. Philly's class?"

"Yeah, think so."

"I can't believe that I forgot about this...But do you remember the first day of school when you got into the glue and put it in all of the girls' hair?"

"Except yours?"

"Yeah! Because I took the glue from you and put it in your hair?"

"That's right! I had to get it all cut off, my parents were pissed." "So were all of the other girls'," she smiled.

"Yo, how do ya remember all of this shit?"

"I don't know," Cassie admitted. "I've always had a good memory. But, I think that day was the reason that we didn't have a class together until junior year."

"Probably," he agreed.

"I'm gonna go figure out this RV situation," Jesse informed Cassie, pressing a light kiss to her forehead.

"Okay," she rolled over and looked up into his blue eyes. He couldn't help himself, he leaned down and pressed a kiss to her lips. "You're gonna get yourself sick." He just shrugged. "I love you."

"Love ya too," he replied before leaving.

Cassie stayed in their bed for a few minutes before decided to get up. She did need to pick up some NyQuil or something. She figured that this would pass if she went to sleep, but now she was a lot more sick than she had been before.

She rose from the bed, took her hair down from the messy pony tail and just let the curls fall. She didn't care at this point, sure the store clerk would probably think that she looked like crap, but that didn't matter to her. She was still wearing Jesse's jacket and her sweatpants, all she needed was shoes. She grabbed her purse from the dresser and slipped on a pair of shoes that were by the door. She then got in her car and drove to the nearest grocery store. She parked near the front, because her muscles ached too much to walk from that far.

"Cassie?" A female voice asked. Cassie looked over in surprise, she thought that she knew that voice.

"Skyler?" she asked, seeing the blonde woman.

"It's...It's nice to see you," she said.

"Yeah, you-"

"Mom," she knew that voice too.

"Junior?"

"Cassie!" She hugged her younger cousin.

"Hey you, you've grown up so much!"

"How are you, Cassie?"

"I've been better," she replied. Walter Junior looked at his cousin that he had known as like a sister to him for so long.

"You've got a ring on..." he pointed out as she ran her finger though her curly hair.

"Yeah, Jesse asked me to marry him yesterday..." she replied, a small smile on her face when she saw the annoyance on Skyler's face, she didn't know why she had always loved to piss off her aunt, and it wasn't a difficult task.

"I'm happy for you," he smiled.

"You're so grown up, Junior. Expect an invitation to the wedding." Cassie would invite her cousin, but she wouldn't be inviting Walter and Skyler, especially after what Walter was doing right now.

"Cassie, I want to say that I'm sorry," Skyler said. "You didn't deserve all of that...I was awful to you, I was awful about everything with Jesse...I should've stayed out of it."  
Cassie was surprised. Skyler had never been the one to apologize for anything. She hadn't ever admitted that she was wrong in all the time that Cassie had known her.

"You're sorry?" she questioned.

"I am, please, come over tomorrow so that we can talk." Cassie could tell that she felt bad. Her sympathetic side came out when she nodded.

"What time...?" Maybe it was because she wasn't feeling well that she was in such an agreeable mood.

"Whenever you feel up to it," Skyler said, patting Cassie's shoulder lightly. "That really is a beautiful ring though. Did Jesse pick it out himself?"

"He did...Thank you."

"I'll see you tomorrow."

Jesse didn't get back home until late. The house was quiet and it seemed like nobody was home, but he knew better. Cassie's car was parked in the driveway and it was pretty late, so he assumed that she was sleeping. He climbed up the stairs and went to their room, only to find it empty. He found it rather odd, but then he saw the light coming from under the bathroom door, now it made sense.

"Cass?" he asked, knocking on the door. When she didn't respond, he turned the knob and walked in. It wasn't there could be any way that she was that he hadn't seen before. He found her relaxing in the bathtub with her hair tied up and her eyes closed. "Cass?" he asked again.

"Hm? Jesse?" she sat in surprise. "You scared me," she murmured, lying back down. He sat on the edge of the tub felt her forehead to check for a fever.

"Feelin' any better?"

"Not really," she replied. "You look tired though," she reached her hand out of the tub and touched his face, making his cheek wet from the water. "Did you get an RV."

"Mm hmm," he replied. "Have to go meet Mr. White at eight..."

"You need to get some sleep, babe," she replied. "Hand me my towel?" He got up and grabbed her towel from the sink before handing it to her. She unclogged the tub and stood up. She wrapped the white towel around her and took her hair down from the loose bun that it was in. "Go on to bed, I'll be in in a few minutes."

"Okay," he agreed with a sigh. They each had a long day ahead of them tomorrow.

**AN: Sorry it was short but please review :)**


	7. Chapter 7

**April 20, 2003**

They had been dating for nearly eight months now, it sounded like a lot, but as cliche as it seemed, they had felt like they'd been together for an eternity. They were to the point where they could tell each other anything and not have to worry about how the other one would react. Cassie knew that Jesse dabbled in drugs a little bit, but it didn't affect her relationship with him, so she didn't let that bother her. If he wanted to make mistakes, that was his business. They weren't technically 'allowed' to date each other, but they did anyway, just in secret.

Walt had even decided to give everybody new lab partners by choosing at random, only his plan backfired when Cassie and Jesse were chosen to work together again. Though she wasn't allowed to go anywhere other than school and she wasn't allowed to ride back and forth to school with Jesse, she found ways to see him outside of school. For example, Skyler was working at Benekee and wouldn't be home until almost 6:30, which was about the time Walter got home from the car wash job that he picked up after school. And, when all of that happened, Walter didn't go back home after school, so they had to find somebody to take Cassie and Walt Junior home and that somebody happened to be Jesse. A lot of times, he would go ahead and stay until about 6:00 and Walt Junior was sworn to secrecy, so things weren't all that bad.

Jesse was trying to think of something amazing to do for Cassie's seventeenth birthday while at her house one afternoon. They were lying on the back patio, looking at the clouds, she was using his upper right bicep for a pillow while he used his other hand as his pillow.

"What do you want for your birthday? More than anything?" he asked.

"To be ungrounded and to get to see you whenever I wanted," she said with a huff. She was ungrounded, more or less. Walter and Skyler had told that she could go places with Kim or Maggie, but if they found out that she was sneaking off to meet with Jesse, she would be grounded until her eighteenth birthday.

"Somethin' I can get ya."

"I don't know," she confessed. Though neither of them had said the "L" word, they both had felt it, they couldn't be comfortable like they were otherwise. "I hate this..."

"What?" he asked curiously. Her mind had drifted off somewhere else, he could tell.

"The fact that I can't do anything I won't and that I won't even get to spend my birthday with my boyfriend for whatever reason. I mean, we've already had sex and they know what! Why can't I just a free pass for one night? That's what I want..."

"I'll make it happen," he said.

"Do you have magic powers you're hiding from me? We both know that request is like asking for a real life unicorn that craps gold and diamonds."

"I said I'll make it happen, so don't worry about it."

"You sound confident...you're going to get my hopes up, Jesse..." She sighed.

"Yo, you said that's what you wanted, that's what you're gonna get."

"We should get to work on that project," She said, changing the subject. She pulled herself to her feet and waited for him to do the same. He groaned and held a hand out to her, wanting her help up, she smiled and did her best to pull him to his feet, but even though by most standards, Jesse was kind of short, he had nearly half of a foot over her and she was mostly petite otherwise.

"Do we have to?" he whined, now standing.

"Yep," she said. "We've got a lot of work to get done...but I'm going to call Skyler and ask her if you can come over to work on this project so that you can be here longer..."

"Now that, I like the sound of," he smirked.

"Exactly," she led the way inside and picked up the house phone before dialing Skyler's number.

"Hello?" she answered. Even though she was at work, she recognized her home number.

"Hi Aunt Skyler...So in English class...Jesse and I got put together to work on this really huge project that's worth like 20% of our grade and I really want a good grade, so he can come over to help me work on it? I mean, unless you would rather me go to his house when you get back..." She knew that Skyler couldn't say no, mostly because she and Walt wanted her to go to a good school and that meant getting good grades in college.

"Cassie," Skyler sighed. Cassie hopped up onto the counter top and awaited her aunt's response. Jesse walked over and stood between her legs with his hands on the counter on either side of her thighs. He wanted so badly to kiss her collar bone, but he was worried that Skyler would hear it over the phone.

"Please, Aunt Skyler. If I don't get a good grade, I won't do well in English..." Cassie was trying as hard as she could to get Skyler to agree. "Besides...Junior's here...it's not like anything can happen..." she added, knowing that was part of was keeping Skyler from agreeing to it.

"Fine," she relented. "But no funny business, I mean it, Cassie," she said firmly.

"Yes ma'am. Thank you," Cassie grinned.

"Mm hmm. I'll be home in about an hour."

"'Kay bye," she hung up and put the phone back on the charger thing. Jesse took this chance to press light kisses on her neck. "Don't think I don't know what you're trying to do..."

"What's that?" he questioned.

"You're trying to distract me so that we don't get to working on that project. And you know that's not going to work."

"Maybe it will," he shrugged, kissing her neck softly yet again, he could faintly smell her perfume and he loved it. She always smelled good.

"You're cute an all, but we've got a lot to do," she whispered, trying to convince herself to pull away from him.

"I'm cute, am I?" he looked up at her with his stunning blue eyes.

"Absolutely fucking adorable," she grinned, further messing up his hair. He smirked as she dropped rested it at the top of his spine, which got her thinking about something. A few inches down was a tattoo that he had. It was colorful and reminded her of a mask from the day of the dead celebrations. "I know something I want for my birthday."

"Hmm?"

"A tattoo," she replied. He quirked and eyebrow and looked at her curiously.

"You want a tattoo?" he asked and she nodded. "What do ya wanna get? Where?"

"I don't know...I just now thought about it...I want something meaningful..."

"You should get 'Jesse' tattooed right...there," he gently ran his index finger over her shirt clad left breast.

"Oh should I?" she giggled. "I might as well just get a huge 'property of Jesse Pinkman' on my back, do like a full back tattoo."

"That works too," he kissed her lips. "If you get 'Jesse', I'll get 'Cassie'," he touched his chest in the same spot, though, he already had a dragon there, he could fit it in.

"Matching tattoos?" Those are serious, Jesse," she said, looking at him, meaning that it was very serious. "That's more permanent than any ring..."

He shrugged. "If that's not what ya want, you don't have to get it..." he took a serious tone now too. Her other hand came up and rested on the back of his neck.

"No, I think that would be great...I just want you to know that this is big-if we do this..."

"Good," came his replied. He murmured something against her neck that she couldn't quite hear before he kissed her there again. He murmured something again, this time just a little bit louder. Jesse knew that she hadn't heard him the first time, she wasn't supposed to. The first time he said it, it was more for his own benefit. "I love you," he whispered against her ear.

"You love me?" she questioned, he looked up at her and nodded. A smile broke across her features. Hearing it made her heart rate quicken. "I love you-" Before she could even say 'too' he kissed her passionately.

"So are you having a party or anything?" Kim asked Cassie as they changed for gym class that Friday-Cassie's birthday.

"Tomorrow I wanna have you and Maggie over...But tonight-thanks to Jesse's magical powers, I'm hanging out with him...He hasn't told me the exact plans yet, but I think I have a pretty good idea.

"Oh yeah? What do you think?"

"Somewhere along the lines of getting a tattoo," Cassie smirked.

"How? You're only seventeen."

"He knows a guy."

"What do you think you're going to get?"

"Can't tell you. It's gonna be a surprise."

"Why?" she pouted.

"Just because. You can see it Saturday."  
"You're so mean to me!" she whined. Cassie simply rolled her eyes. Maggie, their other friend walked over. Maggie, like Cassie was kind of short. She had pin-straight dark brown hair that came to her shoulders and hazel eyes.

"What's going on?"

"Cassie's getting a tattoo," Kim blurted out.

"What of?"

"You'll see Saturday when you come over..."

"That's no fun!" she said. Cassie just stuck her tongue out at her friends. She loved to get on their nerves, it was just what they did to each other.

The young couple had stopped at the little diner that they had gone to on their first date first before Jesse drove to the tattoo shop. "You sure you wanna do this?" They hurt," he said.

"Yeah, I'm sure. But, I understand if you want to chicken out," she said.

"I've already got two, yo. I ain't scared," he said.

"You don't have to lie to me, you know that, don't you?"

"I ain't lyin'," he said.

"Okay," she replied, believing him this time.

They soon arrived at the little shop and Jesse led the way inside. The place was really small and if Jesse hadn't gotten his tattoos here, Cassie would've probably refused to go inside.

"Yo, Joey. What's up?" he called to a tall, bald man with his arms covered in tattoos.

"Hey Jesse," the other man greeted. He sounded just as intimidating as he looked.

"Joey, this is Cassie, my girlfriend. Today's her birthday and she wants a tattoo."

"Whatcha want?"

"Um..." Cassie didn't see how Jesse was so calm, this guy was tall and very...muscly. He scared her a bit. "I want 'Jesse' right here..." she touched the same spot that he had days ago.

"Damn, Jesse. Pretty and committed," Joey laughed and smiled at Jesse, who couldn't help but smile a little bit. "Are you getting her name as well?" Joey asked.

"Yeah," Jesse replied. He knew how Joey felt about couples getting each other's names. Joey thought that it was stupid, but Jesse didn't care, especially because Joey was the only one that would actually do that tattoo and not question how old Cassie was.

"Okay," Joey tried to retain his laughter a bit. "Which one of you two s going first?"

"I will," Cassie said bravely. She knew that if she watched the process before she got hers done, she would chicken out and she didn't want to do that. Joey smiled and patted the tattoo chair in front of him.

"Wasn't too bad, was it?" Jesse asked Cassie on the way home. She felt so rebellious and brave for getting a tattoo. She had this insane adrenaline rush and she wanted to go do something else fun.

"That was so amazing!" her hands were shaking a little bit. "What else can we do?"

"What do you want to do?"

"I don't know!" But, then she looked down at the digital clock in the car. It was 10:30 and she had to be home by eleven. "Shit...looks like I won't be doing anything..."

Jesse looked down at the clock, it would take about fifteen minutes to get back to her house. Damn.

"This is a rule that I can't break...not if I want to be able to see you," she replied, looking down at her lap.

"I know," Jesse was all about breaking rules, but he too knew that it was a stretch to get her to be allowed to come out with him and he couldn't deal with the next year being more sneaking around. "Guess I'm driving ya home?"

"It seems that way," she sighed, her adrenaline was quickly diminishing.

"Dammit," he sighed. Jesse took the next street that would eventually lead to her house. "Gotcha somethin' though." She looked at him slightly confused. "Glove box." She opened it up and found a rectangular black box. "Open it up," he said. She slowly pulled it open and found a silver chain with a 'J' on it. She smirked at him.

"You're trying to brand me as yours, aren't you?" she giggled.

"That's the plan," he said looking over at her. She looked back at him as they pulled onto Cassie's street. She had the smallest of smiles on her face in the dark car. She loved that he wanted the world to know that it was the two of them.

"It does seem to be working," she laughed a little, thinking of her tattoo and now her necklace that she planned on wearing from now on.

He parked his car next to the curb in front of the White residence and took his opportunity to kiss her. "Happy birthday, Cass," he whispered against her lips.

"Thank you," she replied. They still had fifteen minutes before she had to be inside, so they could take their time saying their goodbyes. "I'll see you Monday then?"

"Mm. I love you."

"I love you," she replied.


	8. Chapter 8

**AN: No school for me tomorrow :)**

Cassie had been sitting with Skyler for nearly an hour. They were sitting at the table just talking and sipping tea. Cassie didn't really like the idea of any of it, but Skyler had been very sincerely apologetic for everything.

"So when you two do get married, do you want kids or...?" Skyler asked.

"Don't say it like that," Cassie said.

"Like what?"

"Just because you know what Jesse has done in the past, don't say it like he's not going to be a good father eventually. Jesse loves kids and he's always been great with them."  
"I'm sorry," Skyler apologized for the umpteenth million time that afternoon. "Junior always said that he was nice..." Cassie was slightly confused.

"I know that Jesse was here most days after school. Junior slipped up one evening and told me how Jesse was always nice and the two of you were good to him..."

"And you didn't tell uncle Walt?"

"Despite what you may think, I'm not evil, Cassie. I know what it was like to have a boyfriend that my parents hated so I wasn't allowed around him, but I figured that you two would find ways to see each other no matter what so at least Junior was here keeping an eye on the two of you..."

Cassie didn't know what to say to that. Luckily, she didn't have to because the front door burst open and a dark haired woman that she hadn't seen in years walked in.

"I figured that you could use some company today-" Marie paused. "Cassie?" she was so surprised to see her niece, technically they weren't related at all, but she had always called her her niece anyway.

"Hi there, Aunt Marie," things were especially awkward for Cassie because she knew that Walt and Jesse were cooking meth right now and Marie's husband, Hank was a DEA agent.

"Oh my God, you're so grown up!" Marie exclaimed. "Come here and give your aunt a hug!" Cassie rose from her seat at the table and walked over to hug Marie. "How old are you now? It's been so long, I can't even remember."

"Twenty-two."

"Oh, I remember when I was twenty-two, that was a fun year. How are you?"

"I'm good. You?"

"I'm great! Oh my God, is that a ring I see on your finger?" Marie grabbed Cassie's left hand and looked at it carefully. "Are you still with the same guy?"

"I am..."

"Oh. Is he still-?"

"No," she lied. Marie was asking if Jesse was still a part of the drug trade. The last thing Cassie wanted to do was tell the truth to Marie.

"Good! Your ring is really pretty though," she complimented.

"Thanks," Cassie replied. "I'll let you guys hang out. There's some housework that I need to get done anyway."

"Oh no, I'll get out of your hair, I didn't realize that you two were even on speaking terms..." Marie said.

"We weren't. But really, the dishes need done and some other cleaning...Have fun without me, guys." Cassie grabbed Jesse's sweatshirt off the back of the chair and put it on before going to her car. She then drove home and got to work on the house work, she was happy to be feeling much better, but Alan had insisted that I stay home again, which I was fine with because I didn't really feel like going to work today.

Cassie tried not to let herself worry. She really did, but it was getting really, really late and Jesse wasn't home yet. She checked her phone, again, and found no missed calls. It was nearly one in the morning and usually he called her or something. This was all getting strange and she was getting more and more worried by the minute. She took a deep breath and decided that she needed to be up early, so she could sleep. But her brain wouldn't shut down, there was so many possibilities of what could be going on. What if Jesse had gotten arrested? Or worse?

She pulled out her cell phone again and dialed his number. It rang and rang, and she got his voicemail-again. "Hey Jesse...it's me...I just want to make sure you're alright...It's getting late. I love you," she said, hanging up.

Before she could stop them, the tears came. She had never been one to cry over something so silly, but she couldn't help herself. What Jesse did was dangerous and so many things could go wrong...She didn't like the fact that she had no idea if he was safe or not. What if any moment, there would be police to take her in for questioning because he had been arrested? What if they would have her identify a body or something? She couldn't handle that. The moment he told her that he would quit, was one of the happiest of her life, but not long after, he was forced back into that world. She had always thought that Jesse was at his best when he was away from drugs. She loved him no matter what, but he was more himself when he wasn't on anything. She wanted to be married to the clean Jesse Pinkman.

Suddenly, the door downstairs opened, she could hear somebody's footsteps come across the hard wood floor. She always found it crazy how much you could hear from upstairs that was going on downstairs.

Gaining courage, Cassie wiped her tear streaked cheeks and walked down the steps quietly.

"Goddammit," Jesse cursed as he put something frozen from within the freezer on his eye. He heard light footsteps coming down the steps. "Cass," he called. "'S just me..."

"Jesse! Oh my God, you have no idea...I just..." she flung herself into his chest and hugged him tightly, sobbing against him. "I was so worried."

"I'm okay," he said, kissing the top of her head as he hugged her back.

She suddenly pushed back from him, sensing that something was off. She ignored his black eye for a moment and then glared at him. "You did some of it, didn't you?" she questioned, referring to the meth that he and Walter had been cooking today.

"He wanted me to test the quality, yo."

"That's bullshit, Jesse and you know it. What happened to not going around any of it? If you have to cook it with my uncle I'm just asking that you not do it..."

"That's what happened! You can't expect me to fucking be out there cooking it and not do any!" he exclaimed. "I thought you loved me as I was."

"Don't do that," she warned. "We're not turning this into one of those fights. What happened to getting married? You're the one that put this ring on my finger, I didn't ask you to do that!"

"That's what you've talked about for years! You've always wanted to get married!"

"So have you, to my understanding, at least!" she started to walk back towards the stairs. "Y'know what? I have work in the morning, I can't even look at you right now, just...Just sleep on the damn couch."

He had made her worry herself silly and she comes back like _that_and doesn't even apologize for it, he just acts like it's part of his job description. She wanted to marry him, she wanted to have kids, eventually. But, she didn't want him dependent on meth or even using regularly. She didn't know what his black eye was from and in that moment, she didn't care. She slammed their bedroom door behind her and plopped into their bed with a huff.

Jesse raked his hands through his hair. He knew that he had screwed up. Cassie was always the reasonable one. She only got mad if it was well deserved and this was only the second time in their six year relationship that she had told him to sleep on the couch, which was very uncomfortable. Irregardless, he tried to make himself comfortable on it, which was really just an uphill battle that he would never win.

"Cassie!" a voice yelled from downstairs. It came out as more of a cry of fear or pain. It woke the curly haired woman from her sleep and scared the hell out of her. The familiar voice shouted it again and again, sobs followed.

As pissed as she was at Jesse, she couldn't let him suffer by himself. She hurried walked down the stairs and knelt beside the couch. The living room was completely dark, save the moonlight making Jesse's silhouette slightly viable. The rest of the house was completely dark though, but she had this place memorized.

"Jesse," she said softly, shaking him a little bit. His chest was bare and he'd kicked all of the blankets to the end of the couch. She could see moisture glistening on his face. She wasn't sure if it was sweat or tears, but she wanted to put an end to it. "Jesse, sweetheart, please wake up," she murmured, shaking his shoulders a bit. His bright blue eyes opened and he took in the sight of her.

"Cass," he mumbled, pulling her against him. He took in her sweet scent and buried his face in her soft, curly hair. "I'm sorry...I'm sorry..." he said over and over again. "It was my fault..."

She could tell the difference between when we was lucid and when he was still partially in the dream, he wasn't fully awake at that moment. "Why don't you come upstairs with me, honey?" she offered him.

"I'm sorry..." he said again as she held him stand up. She helped him up the stairs and into their bed. "I'm so...so...sorry."

"It's okay," she tried to tel him, but he shook his head and began sobbing uncontrollably again.

At this point, they were in their bed and she just allowed him to cry it out. She didn't know what his nightmare had been about, but it must have been a terrible one. Usually, he would come out of it in a few seconds, but not this time. This time, he lost in his dream world.

Jesse had seen Cassie die. He had seen her pale blue eyes looking sadder than they ever had and she pleaded for him to do anything to save her. Over and over again she had said, "Jesse please...please save me. Don't let him kill me..." He had seen the mystery man with a gun to her head, but he didn't know what to do. The man didn't have a face, let alone a voice. Jesse asked him what he needed to do to save her, but he said nothing, when time ran out, the man pulled the trigger on the gun and she fell to the floor. He had dropped to his knees and looked up at the man, he had on a strange older looking at and simply walked away.

"Cassie," he had whispered to her, rolling her limp body over so that he could see her. Her face was colorless and her eyes were still open. That image was forever burned in his mind as he was next to the real thing. He pulled the sleeping woman closer to him and kissed her head over and over again. He whispered that he loved her and that he would do anything for her. He would never touch the stuff again, he couldn't see her die.

"Jesse," she rolled over and looked at him with sleepy eyes. "It's not even light out..." she pointed out. She had heard him whispering to her, but she hadn't heard what he had said.

"Go back to sleep," he urged.

"What was your nightmare about?" She remembered that she was supposed to be mad at him, but his subconscious had done the punishing for her.

"I um..." he quickly, in as little detail as possible, explained his dream. "I'm sorry for yesterday...I-I..." he trailed of. She looked at him carefully. She reached up, her skinny fingers brushed against his black eye and frowned.

"It's okay...I think you've been though enough," she said. "How did this happen?"

"I fell," he told her honestly. She raised an eyebrow. "My damn pants tripped me, yo an' I like fell on a rock, literally."

"Wow," she rolled her eyes. "You need a belt," she giggled.

That sound brought a large grin to his lips. He had lost her last night, in his dream anyway, and if he had actually lost her, he wouldn't have been able to hear that sound ever again. "Maybe," he agreed. He couldn't help but kiss her. He needed to feel her lips to know that this wasn't the dream, that the one where she died was.

"I've gotta go to work," she said with a sigh.

"We're done with our fight though, right?" he asked.

"Yeah, just..."

"I won't touch that shit anymore," he promised. "I love you, Cassie," he said, looking at her intensely. "I put that ring on your finger 'cause I wanna be with you an' only you forever."

"And I let you put it on my finger because I feel the same way, Jesse. I love you two." He let her up from the bed, but he stayed there, shirtless as she dressed in a white button down shirt and a pair of black pants. She walked into the bathroom and brushing out her hair. She put it up because she didn't want to worry about getting her long hair in anybody's food. That would just be gross. "Do I look okay?" she asked. She wanted to make sure that she didn't look sick still.

"Beautiful," he said. She walked over to tell him that she'd see him soon. He sat up and pulled her into a tight hug.

"I'll be back, silly," it felt like he was giving her a hug because he thought that he would never see her again.

"I know," he whispered.

That dream must have affected him more than she had thought. Jesse was affectionate at times, but when she was simply going to work, he wasn't like this.

"Cassie White?" Cassie was picked up somebody's order when she heard a voice that sounded rather familiar. She turned towards the door of the waffle house and saw Kim walking in with a tall, dark haired man. She delivered the food to the table she was working on and walked over to Kim.

"Oh my God, it's been so long," she said with a huge smile. Kim had left for college after high school. Kim pulled her once best friend into a tight hug, they hadn't even spoken since about a year after Kim left.

"It has! Which section is yours? I wanna talk to you more!" Cassie led the way over to a table in the corner that was open. There was only one other waitress in there, and she had a table to herself still. "What have you been up to? Are you married? Kids?"

"Not yet," Cassie said, it had only been four years, sure that was enough time for her to get married and have a kid, but she and Jesse had been fine with it being just the two of them. "But, I am engaged," she added.

"To Jesse?"

"Yeah, he proposed just a couple of days ago," she extended her hand and showed Kim the silver ring with the diamond in the middle.

"It's beautiful. This is Oliver, by the way. Oliver, this is my very good friend from high school, Cassie."

"It's nice to meet you," Oliver said.

"You too," Cassie smiled. "Can I start you guys off with something to drink?"

"Coke," Oliver said.

"Me too," Kim agreed. "I never thought I'd see you as a waitress though...You always had big dreams of becoming a doctor..."

"I didn't have the money for it," Cassie shrugged, keeping it rather vague. "I'll be right back with your cokes," Cassie walked back into the kitchen area. She prepared the cokes and brought them back to the table. "So what brings you back to ABQ?" Cassie asked Kim.

"Well, I just got into the pre-med program at Harvard."

"Really? That's great!"

"I had to tell my parents in person and they needed to meet Oliver anyway."

"Congratulations."

"You too, on your engagement."

"Thanks."

Cassie and Kim exchanged phone numbers before Kim left, but they both knew that they would never call each other. Once upon a time, they may have been best friends, but they weren't anymore and they were from different walks of life now and neither of them were the same people.

Cassie tried not to let it bother her, he shrugged it off and drove home. She parked in the driveway and everything looked just as she had left it. Jesse's car wasn't there, but it hadn't been earlier either, so she figured that he was still home. The old RV was sitting in the driveway and she, honestly, wanted that thing out of here. She didn't like the idea of it being parked there. She unlocked the front door and walked inside.

"Jesse!" she sang. "I'm home...and-Walter?" She was about to call out that she was ready for their makeup sex. They had this fighting routine, every time they would get into an argument, they were end up having very hot makeup sex. And, if Walter wasn't a killjoy, she didn't know what was. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"I'm waiting for your boyfriend to get back," he said simply.

"He's not here?" Cassie asked.

"He left, but he'll be back."

"Way to be fucking vague," usually she didn't cuss a lot, but Walter seemed to bring out the worst in her. Skyler had apologized and that was different, but Walter didn't regret what had gone on and now he was keeping her from having Jesse back to his normal self because Walter was blackmailing her fiance! "Do you happen to know where he went?"

"Um no," Walter lied. He didn't know how much Cassie knew about the events from yesterday.

"Fine, I'll just go call him," she rolled her eyes. She pulled out her phone and dialed his number before walking into the kitchen.

"'Sup yo?"

"Hey...It would be nice to know that when I walk in our house that my uncle was here..."

"I thought I'd be back by now," Jesse said. "I'm sorry."

"Well I spent all that time on the drive home thinkin' about all the things we could do in the kitchen...the living room...y'know, all over the house..."

"Dammit," Jesse cursed. He loved their makeup sex. It was this best part of fighting.

"Mm hmm, so why don't you hurry back so we can..." she trailed off, hearing footsteps coming her way. "Can I help you?" she snapped, looking at Walter.

"I want to make sure that he is buying the right thing...Can I please talk to him?"

"Walter wants to talk to you."

"Put him on," Jesse sighed.

"Okay..."

Cassie didn't know what they were talking about, she probably didn't want to either, so she just let whatever it was be.

**AN: Please Review!**


	9. Chapter 9

Jesse came home a little later and Walter left right after, not without giving an annoyed look to the younger man.

"Cass," he said with a smirk. He was going to block out why he had to go to the store and the coin toss from earlier, along with the fact that there was a man that was barely alive in their basement.

"Jesse," she sang with a grin. She wrapped her arms around his neck and began kissing him. He picked her up by the back of her thighs and held her right under her butt.

Before he could walk up the first step, Cassie heard what sounded like coughing and pulled back from her fiance. "What the hell was that?" Jesse was still holding her up, but now she was looking at him nervously.

"It's nothin'," he said, starting to go back to kissing her, but she put her and on his shoulder and pushed him back. She stood on her own feet and eyed him carefully. "It isn't anything you need to worry about," he said, rephrasing it.

"Jesse..."

"Cass," he replied. He didn't want to tell her, they would just fight again and knew that it wouldn't be a quick fight.

"Jesse, tell me. Be honest with me...I won't get mad," she said. Her eye told him that she was being truthful, but he knew her well enough to know that she would freak out.

"Can't we do this first?" he tried, placing his hand on her hip.

Cassie wanted to, she bit her lip, wanting to be mad at him still, whatever it was, she could yell at him after. She had been wanting this since their fight ended.

"Okay," she sighed, going back to the position that they were in before. He smiled into the kiss, one of the many things that he loved about her was her ability to keep up with his libido.

"Now tell me," Cassie told Jesse a few moments after they had finished their fun. "What happened?"

"So remembered Emilio?" she nodded. "He's got a cousin, Krazy-8, an' Krazy-8's a distributor, someone that's higher up an' can do somethin'. So I took 'im out to where me an' yer uncle were cookin'. They were gonna kill us."

"Is that how you got your black eye?" she asked.

"I really did fall, I wouldn't lie to you, Cass. But your uncle did somethin' with chemicals and we thought that we killed 'em...but Krazy-8's still alive, yo. He's in the basement an' your uncle's gotta kill 'im...We flipped a coin."

"And what do you have to do?" She was trying not to be mad, but it was really difficult.

"I have to get rid of Emilio's body..." Jesse sighed.

"Oh my God...Jesse," she said. "This isn't...this business you're a part of...I..."

"Cass, I know." He waited for her to yell at him or do something, but she just frowned. She was conflicted on rather or not she should yell at him. She didn't want to, she didn't like being _that girl_ and freaking out on him and he didn't like for her to be mad at him either.

"How are you going to do that?" she asked.

"Do ya really wanna know?" he asked. She shook her head.

"I've got work tomorrow, we should both probably go to sleep..." she said, rolling over and facing away from him.

In a way, Jesse felt that it was worse for her to not say anything. He didn't want to get in an argument with her for the second night in a row, but her indifference wasn't something that he liked either. Instead of actually falling asleep, he decided to get things over with and get rid of Emilio's body. He had the hydrofluoric acid already, he would just have to use the bathtub because there weren't any plastic bins large enough.

Cassie felt ill when she woke up. She thought that she was over her illness, but apparently not. She hurried to the bathroom and dry heaved into the toilet. She hadn't eaten anything the night before, she realized, so there wasn't anything to get rid of. The sickly feeling in her stomach was still there, but there wasn't anything she could do about it.

She walked back into the bedroom to check the time, but she first noticed that Jesse wasn't in the bed. She frowned, hoping that he was being safe with whatever he was doing. She walked over to her nightstand and picked up her cell phone. That was when she heard a huge splashing sound. She hurried towards where she heard the noise. She took the stairs two at a time and found a large pile of red, squishy mess. She noticed what looked like...body part. The smell made her stomach churn as she hurried into the kitchen to heave once more. She leaned over the kitchen sink, this time, her stomach found something to get rid of and she turned the water on the wash the little bit down. She dialed Jesse's number as quickly as she could.

"Yo, I was just think'-"

"What the hell?"

Jesse knew that tone, she was pissed. "What's wrong."

"What the hell is all over the floor in the hallway? It's fucking disgusting, Jesse."

"There shouldn't be-"

"There's...parts...And," she walked back there, holding her breath. "There's a whole in the ceiling. What the hell is wrong with you?"

"Shit," Jesse said simply. He had left because he and Walter needed to have a meeting.

"Yeah, shit. I can't even...oh my God...I'm going to murder you! I've gotta be at work in like an hour and there's...there's _this_! I don't even know what to say here."

"Go to work, it'll be gone by the time you get home, I swear," he promised.

"It fucking better be, Jesse, you don't even..." she trailed off, knowing better than to say something that she would regret. She held her tongue from saying that he didn't even know how close she was to packing up and not coming back. She knew that she couldn't do that to him though. Sometimes, love pissed her off. No matter how mad she could be at Jesse, it wouldn't ever last long, she could yell at him and swear that she was done, but then he would look at her with those bright blue eyes and she would go right back to him. It wasn't fair. "I'll be back at six," she said before hanging up. She was beyond the point of being pissed still so she just needed to stop talking to him. She hurried back upstairs to get ready. She didn't want to be in that house for another minute.

Cassie's phone began to ring as she drove to Waffle House, she picked it up, not even looking at the number, she assumed it would be Jesse.

"Cassie?" It was Skyler instead.

"Yeah..." she replied.

"Are you working today?"

"Yeah, I'm on my way there now, why?"

"Walt Junior wanted Waffle House for breakfast," she laughed a little. "Is it okay if we come in?" Skyler still wasn't sure where they stood, so she thought that that she would ask.

"That's fine," Cassie said distractedly. What was she supposed to say? 'Hell no, stay away.'?

"Great, we'll be there in about a half an hour," Skyler replied.

"Okay, see you then," Cassie said. She hung up her phone and continued driving.

A few minutes after Cassie started her shift, Skyler and Junior walked in. She smiled at them and they at her. They took a seat at a table that was a part of her section and she brought menus over.

"Hi Cassie," Junior said.

"Hi," she smiled at him. "What can I get you guys to drink?"

"I'll have a coke," Junior replied.

"Water's fine," Skyler replied.

"I'll be right back with that."

The place wasn't very busy, in fact, they were her only table at the time. So, she got their drinks right out to them.

"Do you feel okay, Cassie?" Skyler asked.

"Um, yeah. Why?" she replied. She didn't, she felt kind of lightheaded and she was still very nauseous.

"You look really pale," Junior answered.

"I'm fine," she assured him. She felt like she was getting even more lightheaded and she suddenly had the urge to take a very long nap.

"Maybe you should sit down for a moment," the blonde offered. In Skyler's opinion, Cassie didn't look like she felt very well. She had pretty much raised Cassie for fourteen years but she hadn't ever seen the dark haired woman look so tired.

"No I'm..." she trailed off.

Skyler saw it coming. She stood up from the booth quickly and caught Cassie before she could faint.

**AN: I'm sorry it was shorter and I know that this was supposed to be a flashback chapter. Last chapter was like 3,000 words, I've been trying to keep them around 2,000 this one isn't quite there though. I don't really have any ideas for flashback chapters so if you want to review and give me some ideas that would be great. Please review :)**


	10. Chapter 10

**May 7, 2003**

"We have to pick our classes for senior year today," Cassie pointed out as they drove to school. Walter was allowing it only because everything had gone so smoothly and they were following his rules.

"That mean we get outta first class?" he questioned. Cassie smiled and nodded.

"Hell yeah!" Jesse was sick of Chemistry class. Walter had given them new partners right before Spring Break and he ended up with one of a cheerleaders that didn't know anything about any of the labs-Jesse didn't either, so it didn't really work out for either of them. But, he was more worried about the fact that Cassie was paired with the captain of the football team that always stared her and tried to flirt with her. Jesse hated that guy.

"You're just glad I won't have to sit by Ryan, aren't you?" Cassie asked with a smirk. She found it incredibly adorable that Jesse was majorly jealous.

"No," he said.

"Uh huh," she smiled rubbing her hand up and down his arm. "I don't like pretty boys though." Cassie didn't like Ryan at all. She only talked to him because she wanted to pass the class. Jesse pulled into the parking lot and parked his car.

"You still coming over tonight?" he asked. It was Friday yet again and since she finally had freedom again, Cassie planned on hanging out with Jesse.

"Mm hmm. Is it just going to be us or-?"

"Some of the guy's 're comin' over."

"Okay, see ya in a few?" he nodded and pulled her in for a kiss.

Cassie went to her locker and dropped off her stuff. She closed her locker and nearly jumped when she saw a tall man in a varsity jacket.

"Hi there," Ryan smiled.

"Hi," she replied coolly. "What do you want?"

"So prom is in like two weeks, right? I was wondering if you wanna go with me?"

"I have a boyfriend, Ryan," she said.

"So? I doubt that he would take you," he shrugged.

"_If_ I go, I'm going with Jesse. Okay? We can be lab partners or whatever, but Jesse is my boyfriend and I love him."

"Fine," Ryan said, walking away. Cassie just rolled her eyes as Jesse walked up to her a moment later. She deemed it best not to tell him about Ryan asking her to prom, they didn't even plan on going, it wasn't their thing.

"Hey," he smiled, kissing her.

"Hey," she grinned.

They walked to the cafeteria, where they would be picking their classes. They sat at one of the tables where Jesse's friends-Brandon, and Pete were already. Cassie assumed that they were who they planned on hanging out with that night.

"Hi guys," Cassie greeted. She didn't have a problem with them, they were like Jesse, in a way, except, she would admit that they were kind of dumb at times, but they were still pretty cool.

"Yo," Pete responded. His nickname was 'Skinny Pete', and it was obvious why that was his name, he was incredibly skinny.

"What up?" Brandon, or 'Badger' greeted. His nickname on the other hand, was kind of confusing. She wasn't quite sure why he was called that, but she went along with it anyway.

"You gonna tell us what the easy classes are?" Pete questioned. She smiled.

"Sure, might as well."

One of the teachers came around with the little booklets with all of the class options in them and a sheet of paper for each person at the table. The four wrote down their information before going for the class booklets.

"What classes are you takin'?" Jesse asked Cassie. She shrugged.

"Something easy. It's my senior year, I'm going to take stuff that isn't going to have homework..." She flipped through the booklet in search of something simple. She had almost all of her credits, so she could graduate early, but she figured that she would stick around with Jesse because she had a feeling that he would've quit long ago if it weren't for her being there.

"What about this biodiversity?" Jesse asked. "You get to like dissect things. And somebody says the teacher lets ya pick out your own lab partner."

"You're doing the dissecting," Cassie said. "Because, that's fucking gross."

Badger gasped. "Cassie just cussed?"

"Yes, I did," she replied, rolling her eyes. He still thought that she was the goodie-goodie she was a year ago.

"Fine with me," Jesse shrugged. "It's available first and last..."

"Wanna take it first class?" she asked. He shrugged, that was his way of agreeing.

"Is that class like going to be easy?" Pete asked.

"Probably," Cassie said. "I don't know though...I'm good at science..."

Cassie helped Badger and Skinny Pete pick out their classes while she and Jesse picked classes that they could have together so that they could spend as much time together as they could at school because Walter couldn't take that away from them no matter what. He had no power in their lives at school.

"This shit is amazing," Badger commented, lying on a beanbag chair upside down. He was smoking pot as he did this.

"Don't hog it all, dude," Skinny Pete said, taking it from his fingers.

Cassie didn't say anything. She didn't know how many times she had been in this situation by now. These two were he ones that Jesse always hung out with, she started seeing more and more of them once Ginny past away. And, every time they hung out, drugs of some sort were involved. That wasn't her thing, so she just sat back and let them do whatever.

As Jesse took a hit, he noticed Cassie's expression. She looked like she was thinking about something. He nudged her upper arm. "Yo, relax," he told her. "Wanna try it?" he offered the joint to her. She just shook her head. "C'mon, what do ya thinks gonna happen? It's just pot, Cass."

"I don't..." she didn't have a good excuse. She knew that she would only live once and what was the worst that could happen? The guys smoked all the time and they were fine. They didn't die from it, so she sighed and accepted it.

"Breath in and hold it 'til you can't anymore..." Jesse instructed. She did, and she found herself in a coughing fit. He patted her back and grinned. "What do ya think?" he asked.

"My throat hurts," she smiled sadly. Badger and Skinny Pete laughed a little.

Cassie didn't feel much different, she just felt the urge to laugh with them. She knew that this was stupid of her and that her aunt and uncle would have a fit if they ever found out, but being a teenager was supposed to be about taking risks and doing stupid stuff. It wasn't about preparing for adulthood, like she had thought that it was before she got to know Jesse.

"I don't know 'bout you guys, but I'm ready to play some fucking video games!" Badger said, passing the joint back to Pete.

"Hell yeah, man!" Pete exclaimed, he passed it to Jesse. They two went over and got the game system on and grabbed the four controllers. Jesse took his hit and offered it to Cassie once more. She hesitated for a moment before accepting it. She didn't know why, but she felt like it was one of those things that she needed to experience at least once.

When Badger held out the controller to her, she took it and handed him the joint in response. One of the many video games Jesse had came up on the screen. It was one of the many Mario Brothers games, this one was a racing one.

"Are you going to be Princess Peach?" Badger asked Cassie. She gave him a death glare.

"Fuck that, I'm being Luigi. You be fucking Princess Peach," she said. She didn't know why she was suddenly ready to use the 'f' word whenever, but she did.

"Damn yo, Jesse...your girlfriend just like...like told Badger!" Skinny Pete laughed. Jesse just shrugged and smiled.

"Do I still smell like pot?" Cassie asked in the dark living room. Badger and Skinny Pete were still playing video games while Jesse and Cassie sat on the couch.

Jesse leaned over and sniffed her shoulder. "Yeah," he replied. "Got any perfume on ya?"

"No, unfortunately. I'll just make myself smell like you."

"How're ya gonna do that?" he smirked, kissing the the right side of her jaw.

"Not like that," she giggled. "I meant with your cologne, goofy."

"But the other way's a lot more fun."

"Not with _them_ here," she motioned to his friends."

"They wouldn't notice if a bomb dropped right behind 'em," Jesse shrugged. "We could go upstairs an' they'd never know."

"Except you know how easy it is to hear stuff in this house..." she trailed off. "And for _other _reasons, it's not a good idea..." she whispered. She didn't want to tell him that it was a bad time of the month for that so she was hinting it instead.

It took Jesse a minute but then he understood. "Dammit," he said.

"I'm sorry hon," she said. He kissed her anyway, she had shown him today that she didn't judge him or his friends for what they did and he loved that about her. She was perfect to him, he didn't think that any girl would ever be as amazing as Cassie was, but apparently he was wrong. She was fantastic in every way that he could imagine and she was all his.

**AN: Another short one...sorry guys. I know that I've been doing daily updates, but I won't be able to update tomorrow...Just a warning. However, I will update Friday and we'll have to see where Saturday goes. And, I kind of had to dig deep into my movie knowledge for this chapter...I went off of TV and stuff lol. I hoped it seemed authentic...And, for the class part, I don't know how they did schedules in 2003...I don't even graduate until 2016 and we do it all on the computer now...Please review! **


	11. Chapter 11

**AN: So I was curious to see if September 13 had been a Friday in 2002 and it was. I am awesome. Lol, I just used what was convenient for my story but it held accuracy :) I love it when that happens. **

"We've run some tests..." A doctor said. Cassie was lying in a hospital bed with Skyler and Walter Junior at her side.

"I'm just dehydrated, right?"

"That among a few other things...I take it you haven't eaten much recently?" She shook her head and frowned. The doctor looked at her sadly with dark brown eyes. They were caring, yet very dark. She had bleach blonde hair that was pulled back in a bun so that it couldn't get in her way.

"I just kind of forgot...there's been a lot going on and I've been sick..."

"There's reason for that. Ms. White, as I was saying about your tests, we found something...interesting. You're pregnant."

"What? You're mistaken...I..."

"I'm afraid not. About four weeks but, you are pregnant..."

Cassie thought back...Four weeks...That was too long to remember. But, she and Jesse were safe, they weren't ready for children, so they used protection.

"Oh my God..." she said. She looked down at the ring on her finger and thought more about Jesse. She didn't know how he would react to this news...She didn't know if she wanted him to know. Things with him weren't exactly the best to bring a baby in to. She loved him more than anything but he was too deep into the drug scene, especially since he was cooking it with Walter.

"You okay?" Skyler asked. She cared about her niece and Cassie looked rather pale still.

"Y-yeah...I need...I need to call Jesse. I need to get home," so many thoughts were running through her mind at once. "Where's my phone?"

"Here," Skyler pulled it out of her purse and held it out to Cassie.

"You can't use that in here...I'll get your release forms and you'll be out of here shortly," the doctor said. Cassie frowned as the older woman left the room.

"I can't believe that you're pregnant," Walter Junior said. "T-That's fantastic, right?"

"Yeah," she said, putting on a brave face. "I need to get home..." she sighed. "Thank you for staying here with me..." she was tired and wanted the day to end.

"Hey? Ya on break?" Jesse called as she was on her way home.

"Um no, actually..." she said. "I'm on my way home...I'm...I'm not feeling well." Telling someone that they were going to be a dad over the phone wasn't the best idea. It would have to wait until she got back and they actually got into a conversation.

"No shit?" Jesse was panicking. He had so much to get cleaned up before she got back. He didn't need to clean up the mess in the hallway but now there was the mess in the basement with the new lab since they couldn't cook in the RV.

"Yeah," she replied. She had forgotten how mad she was at him. She would try not say anything until she got there though.

Jesse hurried down the steps to the basement and tried to put all of the beakers and other equipment in the boxes so that they could be put in the garage or somewhere.

"What on Earth are you doing?" Walter asked Jesse.

"Cass, I'll see ya when you get here," he said.

"Okay...bye..." she didn't quite understand, but she would let it slide. She knew to do that by now when it came to him.

"Bye," he hung up. "Cass's comin' home. We need to get this shit out of here, she'll kill me."

"The cook isn't done," Walter informed him. "Are you really afraid of her?"

"I'm not afraid of her, yo," Jesse said.

"Then what's the problem."

"How would you feel if we came into your house an' started cookin' 'round your family, bitch?"

"You don't have children."

"That don't matter, yo. Cass made me promise not to bring this shit in here, we gotta get it the fuck out."

"The cook is nearly done."

"She's gonna be here any minute!"

"So stall her! This is not my problem."

Cassie pulled into the driveway and got out of her car. She had knots in her stomach and she didn't feel good, she felt so bad that she missed Walter's white car parked a few blocks away, meaning that he was probably at their house. She braced herself to go inside and tell Jesse. She walked up to the door and when she was about to turn the knob to see if it was locked when it burst open and a familiar bright blue eyed man appeared.

"Hey, Cass!" he exclaimed.

"Hi..." she said.

"So y'know what we should do?" We should go out and get something to eat...something different, y'know."

"What's going on, Jesse?" she asked. "Did something happen or-?"

"I can't just take my fiancee out to dinner?" he asked, cocking an eyebrow. "C'mon, it'll be fun. We can get ice cream after and have fun."

"I don't know if I feel up to it," she said. "I'm still not feeling well."

"If you start feelin' worse, we'll come home, I promise," he said. He had this look in his eyes that she should've picked up on. She should have realized why he was so desperate to keep her from the house, but she missed it. She had a lot going on and she wasn't able to keep up with all of Jesse's tells.

"Let me go change?"

He hesitated. All he could do was pray that she didn't smell anything or pick up on any of the obvious things. She knew what a meth lab smelled like, she had smelled it on him before, but he wanted her to miss it so badly.

Cassie made the decent up the steps and went to their room. As she passed the spare bedroom, she couldn't help but think about how that would become a nursery. She wondered what color they would paint it and what it would look like when it was done. Maybe she was a little bit happy to be having a baby, but she still felt like it was too soon, she hoped that she would feel differently once it was closer to her due date, which the doctor had told her before they left was May 17th. That sounded like a good day to her.

"This is nice," Jesse said, smiling across the table from her. She was wearing a bright red shirt that swooped down to reveal a little bit of cleavage. Her chest wasn't small, but it wasn't too large that it affected her either.

"Mm hmm," Cassie agreed, taking a bite of her pasta. He told her to pick anywhere and she, for some reason, had decided on Olive Garden. She thought that some pasta would be amazing, she had ordered the Chicken Alfredo.

Jesse didn't expect her to be exactly open and happy with him, not after there was red goo all over the floor this morning, but he thought that she would talk more. He hated when she got quiet, either she was mad or was hiding something and he assumed that it was the former.

"Can you pretend not to be mad at me for a while?" he asked. He planned on begging for forgiveness later.

She looked up at him, trying not to give him the deer in headlights look, but she failed. She removed her hand from her fork and started to twist her engagement ring nervously. She wasn't actually still mad at him and she didn't like the idea of him thinking that. "Jesse," she started. But then she started thinking about everything that could go wrong before the baby was born. She thought about how he very well could be in prison by then and that scared her more than anything. And, as illogical as it may have been, she kept her mouth shut about the baby. She had to make something else up. "I'm just...I'm trying to come to terms with everything, okay?"

He nodded and looked back at his food and then to her. She had returned to swirling her noddles around in her bowl. She looked like she was stressing herself out about it all and he didn't like it. "If I coul' stop, I would," he said. "I tried, remember?"

"I know," she replied. "It's not your fault..." she trailed off. A little part of her did hold him to blame. If he would've gotten out of the drug trade long ago, things would have been fine. "I'm getting really tired," she added, she ate a few of the remaining noodles from her bowl and decided to be done. Though she was starving, she didn't want to eat. She just felt blah in general, it wasn't just Jesse there was something else that she couldn't put her finger on.

"We can go," he said. She just nodded.

The next morning, Cassie woke up earlier than Jesse had. He was lying next to her with his cheek smooched against his pillow and he was shirtless. She could see the 'ie' of Cassie on his chest by the rest was covered by the blanket. She resisted the urge to reach over and smooth his hair because her stomach had a familiar unpleasant feeling. She ran to the bathroom and hurled. She tried to keep it quite, hoping not to wake him.

When she was finished, she decided to go down stairs and do something...anything. She was sure that she could find something to clean or watch television even. She walked back into the bedroom and saw that Jesse had moved to her side of the bed and was hugging her pillow. He had done it before, she wasn't sure why, but it happened kind of frequently.

She walked quickly down the steps and went into the kitchen. It was only then that she realized that something smelled off about the house...she knew the smell. It was strong and made her a little sick. It smelled like the many cook houses that Jesse had been a part of over the years. Somebody had been cooking it here...Her suspicions were confirmed when she walked over to the garbage can and found what looked like a broken beaker in the trash.

Sadness washed over her like a wave. That was an unspoken rule that Jesse had never broken before. Lately, things were just ripping apart at the seams. She tried not to cry but it happened anyway. The pregnancy hormones didn't help, though. She wanted to throw something, but she couldn't do it. She needed somebody to call, but she couldn't think of anybody...Except...except Skyler. Maybe she could salvage what she and Jesse had if she told Skyler about Walt and how he had threatened Jesse and pretty much forced him back into the drug scene. She grabbed the house phone and dialed the White's number.

"Hello?" Skyler answered. She sounded so cheerful. What right did Cassie have to take her happy marriage away from her? That wasn't her place to do. She needed to just stay out of it.

"I'm sorry...I shouldn't of called..." Cassie said, stay crying a bit.

"What's wrong?" Skyler asked. She knew right away that it was Cassie.

"I um...I can't do it...I can't be a wife and a mother...I can't."

"What happened?" her tone took a more serious tone.

"Jesse um...it's big Skyler...I don't think that I can do this. I can't just keep acting like it's okay for him to keep screwing up. I love him more than anything but...this time it was huge." she was spilling her guts before she even knew it. She hadn't meant to tell Skyler that much. Maybe it was that Cassie still craved to have the closeness you're supposed to have with a mother or maybe it was the fact that Skyler was a mom and she had a husband so she could maybe help Cassie.

"What did he do?"

Those four words made Cassie gulp. She couldn't say it, not on the phone especially.

"Did he hit you?" she asked.

"No, no, no! He would never do that!" Cassie replied. "Just trust me...I don't know what to do..."

"Come stay here for a while. We'll make room in Junior's room. We'll figure something out..."

The offer was rather enticing, but Walter would be there. She didn't know if she could deal with that, but cooking in their house was inexcusable. She bit her lip. She wasn't sure what to do.

Jesse woke up to an empty bed. He was on Cassie's side. Her pillow smelled like the shampoo that she used and there was a hint of her perfume mixed in there. He went to leave the bed but he noticed a white sheet of paper on Cassie's nightstand. He picked it up and saw that it was addressed to him. He gulped in fear, that wasn't a good sign.

_Jesse,_

_ I found the broken beaker in the trash. I can't believe that you would do something like that. How could you cook in __**our house**__? You've gone too far. I know it's childish and cowardly of me for writing you a letter rather than waking you. I know that if I look at you, I'll change my mind and I can't be around this stuff...not anymore. I left my ring on the kitchen counter. I wish you all the best. _

_Cassie_

**AN: I hope that was realistic. I know that I would probably lose my mind in that situation...I realize that I've kind of jumped around a bit so I apologize. Please review. And, I had to walk all the way up an icy driveway just to update today...my internet is out and I haven't updated in a few days...so y'all are lucky lol. **


	12. Chapter 12

Walter had cancer, that was what Cassie had just learned. She had been staying with Walt and Skyler for a few days and after the first day, she had shut her cell phone off because she couldn't stand to see Jesse's name appear on the caller ID anymore. She had approached Walt a few days earlier and made sure that he knew not to tell Jesse where she was and in exchange she promised not to tell Walt Junior and Skyler about his meth dealings. She had also sworn Walt Junior and Skyler to secrecy about the baby. There was a lot of secrets going around and Cassie seemed to know everbody's.

"I'm sure it'll all be okay," she told Junior as she sat in his bedroom, that she had recently moved into. Her old room had been converted into the baby's nursery.

"How the hell do you figure that?" Junior asked.

"Because everything seems to...work itself out."

"What's the real reason you left Jesse?" he asked. Cassie sighed, he was one of the few people that she could trust with her secrets but this one was just too big.

"He couldn't break his habits," she replied with a frown.

"You love him?"

"Yeah, I didn't want to do it, but it just wasn't an environment that I wanted to bring a baby into..." Maybe in some way, talking about her problems would help him with his. It sounded kind of weird, but maybe it was true.

"What do you want it to be?"

She shrugged. "I don't care. I've got a while though...What about your new sister, isn't that exciting?"

"I guess so."

"Your mom says that they like the name 'Holly'."

"Yeah," he replied.

"Yo man, where's Cassie?" Skinny Pete asked Jesse as they were in Jesse's living room with Combo.

"She uh...She's not here," it was too hard for him to admit that she had left him. He didn't want it to be true. He wasn't sleeping and he was just trying to forget her.

"Where's she at?" Combo asked.

"Do I look like a Goddamn GPS to you?" he snapped.

"Geez bro, she's like your girl, man. I jus' thought ya'd like know, y'know?"

"Well I don't, okay? She's working late or some shit," he sighed.

Pete decided to change the subject. "You got any like crystal, bro?"

"Yeah man, ya still cookin'?" Combo asked.

"I may've been."

"You got any?"

"I'm tryin' to back off it, y'know? The shit's been makin' me paranoid..."

"In other words, your girl don' want ya doin' it no more," Combo said.

"No, I jus'...It's been makin' me paranoid and I don' need that shit."

"If you don' wanna share just say so, man," Pete said. When Jesse didn't say anything, they both made up some excuse to leaven and Jesse knew that he couldn't be in that house alone...He couldn't do it.

"I've got some, some of the best." She wasn't coming back anyway, she wasn't returning his calls and he knew that she probably wouldn't be coming back so he decided to just say screw it and get high because it would take some of the pain away. He wouldn't have to think for a while.

Cassie's morning sickness had gotten progressively worse. She had violent vomiting that would wake her up early in the morning. She had been getting up around six and then she would have to take a nap in the afternoon. She was napping when she heard a rather familiar voice yelling from outside. Her heart dropped and her palms began shaking and she felt nervous. What if he knew that she was there? She was too big of a wimp to face him. She walked over to the other side of the house and peaked out the window. Walter and Jesse were arguing by the pool.

"Here's your share of the money from that batch, four grand," Jesse said.

"Four thousand dollars?" Walter asked in disbelief.

From what she saw of Jesse, she saw that he was clean. He wasn't smoking it, but he was selling it, she figured. She nearly started crying just from seeing him. She wanted to run out there and just go back to him, but she couldn't. She had to focus on what was best for the baby and unfortunately that meant staying away from Jesse for the time being.

A few minutes later, Walt walked back into the house and went to put the money in the nursery-where Cassie was. "You heard that?" he asked. She nodded and frowned. "I didn't say anything about you..." Walter hadn't agreed to cook with Jesse again he needed to stay away from it.  
"I know..." she replied. "I'm gonna go back and lay down..." she said.

"Wait," he said. She turned back and looked at him.

"What is it that you're hiding?" he asked.

"I'm not," she said.

"Cassie," he said. "When I first came across you and Jesse you were...a newly engaged couple, you were happy."

"Yeah because he had just told me that he was going to give up everything, that he was going to go clean but then you come in and screw everything up. I can't even look at him the same now...And I blame you." She went into the room that she was sharing with Walter Junior.

"C'mon, we're going shopping," Skyler announced, walking into Cassie's room. She was asleep, as usual. Cassie threw the pillow over her had.

"No."

"You need maternity clothes, come on," Skyler insisted. "Marie's already here and she's going to come in here if you don't get up now." Cassie rolled over and sighed. One of the reasons she slept all day, she realized was that it helped her forget about Jesse. She didn't sleep well at night because she was used to him at her side. She didn't realize how much she needed his closeness to sleep until now. She had shared a bed with him pretty much every night for four years and it was part of her routine that she missed.

"You told her?"

"No," Skyler said. "I told her we were going shopping for me. Girl time, something that you haven't done in a long time, I'm sure."

"I don't have money, y'know. It's all going towards getting my own place. I'm not staying here forever."

"I've got a rainy day fund..." Skyler said, she didn't, not really anyway. She just needed to get Cassie out of this rut, she was sure that it wasn't good for the baby and if spending a little money could help, then she would try it, whatever they spent today wouldn't even put a dent in the money that Walter needed so she figured that it wouldn't matter much.

"No...I'll use some of mine," she wouldn't let Skyler do that. They had already refused to let her pay them to stay there so she wasn't going to spend their money on top of it.

Cassie walked out into the living room a few minutes later in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. She put on the sweatshirt that she had taken from Jesse. When Marie saw her, she frowned.

"What?" Cassie asked.

"Nothing," Marie replied.

"Nothng my ass. What?"

"It's just that...you're wearing _his_ sweatshirt. No wonder you're depressed. That's not the way to get over a break up."

"Well, I've never done this shit before so I wouldn't know," she snapped.

"Geez, sorry. I was jut trying to help. But I mean, smelling like him really doesn't say 'look at me, I'm available'."

"Marie," Skyler said, trying to end the argument. Marie and Cassie had never argued like this before, she wasn't sure if it was Cassie's mood or what.

"I'm not available anyway," Cassie grumbled.

"Of course you are, honey!" Marie said. "That's the point...you've gotta get back out there and find somebody that makes you smile. You're such a pretty girl...you should smile more."

"I'm pregnant, Marie," the younger woman replied through gritted teeth. "That's why I'm not available. No guy wants to start dating some girl that won't ever get over her ex and is pregnant with his child. So can we please leave now since _somebody_ woke me up?" she gave Skyler a pointed look.

"Fine by me..." Skyler said.

"Have you um heard anything for your like niece or whatever?" Jesse asked, trying to be casual as they were waiting for the batch to finish up.

"Hm?" Walter asked.

"Has Cassie called?" he asked, a little bit more harshly.

"No, I haven't heard from her." Walter felt a little bad for Jesse, but he didn't have too much sympathy. Jesse was the one that had messed things up after all.

"Oh," he raked his hands through his hair nervously and frowned deeply. "I just figured that she would like, try to talk to somebody, y'know?" he was defeated. He had given up on calling. It was clear that she wasn't going to answer. And because he knew that this was the real deal, he wasn't trying to change his ways. He figured that he might as well make money if he was going to be alone anyway. He realized that he had lost his shot with Cassie.

"She'll come around, I'm sure."

"Yeah," Jesse said sarcastically. "The hell you know 'bout it anyway? Probably one ever been married to that same damn chick," he snapped. He didn't want Walter to be the voice of reason. He just wanted his question to be answered and to move on.

"She's only ever dated you," Walter pointed out. Jesse just rolled his eyes. That wasn't the same thing.

"Maybe you need to join the club," Cassie grinned to Marie. She was in a much better mood now that she had eaten something.

"What club's that?" Marie asked.

"The pregnancy club, of course. There's Skyler and there's me now...Then all of our children could be friends," she laughed.

"I don't know about that," Marie said. She liked kids, but not enough to have one all of the time. She and Hank had agreed a long time ago not to have any.

"I have to know," Marie said, changing the subject a little. "Are you going to tell him? Ever?"

"What he doesn't know won't hurt him..." She said, or so she thought.

**AN: Guys, I really didn't realize how many people liked this story...I was honestly just going to quit writing it. I know it's stupid, but I figured that it was kind of an epic fail at writing because I got a review that was rather mean and it kind of made me not want to write this. So, I apologize and thank you to everyone that does like this story. I am very new at writing for Breaking Bad, this is my first one for it and I haven't exactly gotten the characters down yet. I'm fifteen (that isn't supposed to be an excuse) I just don't have a lot of experience. I hope everyone continues to read, thanks. **


	13. Chapter 13

**AN: Until I get an awesome flashback idea, I'm just going to hold off...I'll still accept any ideas. Sorry, I just can't come up with much...**

Cassie was in the kitchen while Walt made his phone call. At the sound of Jesse's name, she flinched. She didn't like that it had that affect on her. His voice, his smell, and everything about him ran through her mind upon hearing his name.

"Well where is he then?" Walter asked. "Oh...I see..." He hung up the phone.

"What happened?" Cassie asked.

He considered not telling her, but she had the right to know. "He's in the hospital...I don't know all of the details, but that's where he is."

"Are you going to-?"

"Yes."

"Can I...Can I go with you?" she stammered.

"You want to do that to yourself?" Slowly, she nodded.

"Just let me go get dressed," she walked down the hall and walked into her room. She changed into a pair of jeans and an old, loose T-shirt. She didn't want to wear something tight because even though she wasn't showing, she didn't want anything tight around her stomach.

The car ride to the hospital was silent. Cassie was trying to figure out what she was going to say to him when she saw him. She was trying to figure out if this was a mistake, it probably was, but she couldn't help but get a little scared when Walter told her that Jesse was in the hospital.

Once they arrived at the hospital, a nurse led them to Jesse's curtained off room. Skinny Pete was sitting beside the bed. Cassie's heard nearly broke when she saw him wearing a neck brace and lying completely still. She took a seat on the other side of his bed, afraid to touch him. She ignored Walter and Pete's conversation and mentally prepared herself for when Jesse woke up.

"I've got some things I need to take care of," Walter said, addressing her. "Are you going to stay here or-"

"That's fine...I'll figure something out," she replied briskly. She gingerly reached out and took his hand. She moved her thumb over his fingers. She knew his hand just as well as she knew her own.

Jesse had been in the hospital for a few hours before he woke up. When he opened his eyes, he realized that somebody was holding onto his hand. He nearly pulled back, but he was in a lot of pain so he didn't. All that he saw at first was the white ceiling of the but then he smelled something rather familiar. There was a sweet scent at his side that he hadn't smelled in weeks. At first, he thought that he was having a dream, an extremely vivid one.

"How are you feeling?" Cassie's voice asked. He looked over at her with wide blue eyes.

"Mm better," he murmured.

"I-I'm..." She couldn't form words. She wanted to just kiss him, tell him how much she loved him, and that she shouldn't have left. She wasn't sure if he had dark circles under his eyes because he hadn't been sleeping or if it was because of the injuries he had received.

"I'm gonna go smoke a cigarette, man," Pete said, leaving quickly.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I just want things to go back to the way that they were...I..." she stood up and leaned down to press a solid kiss on his lips. He kissed her back briefly.

"I'm sorry too," he replied. "Ya ain't got nothin' to be sorry for, Cass."

"I shouldn't have left...I was just...I was at my breaking point. I love you to much, Jesse."

"I love you, Cass," he replied. She brought another kiss to his lips and smiled into it.

"You really don't want to sleep in the house?" Cassie asked, cocking an eyebrow at Jesse. He frowned.

"No, that place has gotta be fuckin' haunted by now...Let's sell it, got plenty of money to do whatever."

"Sell it?" she asked. He nodded.

"Hell yeah, we'll find some place better. One with a pool or some shit."

"So where do you want to sleep?" she asked, she wasn't sure if she was going to stay there tonight, but she wanted to help him as much as she could.

"RV," he said. She had driven them home in his car and the were just pulling in the driveway.

"Doesn't it...smell?"

"It'll be a hell of a lot better than the house."

"I've got something I need to tell you," she said, trying to keep her voice at an even tone. He looked over at her nervously. He hoped it wasn't something bad...Maybe his luck would turn around he it would be something good. But, judging by her tone, he figured it had to be something bad. "I um...So I was at work...And I passed out while I was waiting on a table-Skyler and Walt Junior ironically-so they took me to the ER and ran some tests..." Jesse could feel the nerves setting in. His hands shook a little, thinking about everything that could be wrong with her. "It's the funniest thing...I'm...I'm pregnant, Jesse."

"Wait, what?" had he heard her right? She wasn't just going to like drop dead? She was...pregnant?

"I'm going to have a baby..._our_ baby."

"That's fuckin' awesome!" he exclaimed. Maybe it wasn't exactly the best thing, but it was a lot better than what he had expected!

"Is it?"

"Yeah, I'm gonna be a dad, bitch!" he exclaimed. She giggled a little. She was surprised that he was so happy. "Wait...but...uh like how?"

"We weren't careful enough," she shrugged.

He didn't care how it happened, well he knew _how_ it happened, but it wasn't supposed to happen, either way, he didn't care. He was happy. He would have a family of his own and he had Cassie back.

They both exited the car and Jesse began to hobble to the RV. Cassie stayed close to him for support, but he got there on his own.

"Goin' to stay here with me t'night?" Jesse asked later that afternoon. He was resting on a cot at the back of the RV.

"Um, I don't think I am..." Cassie replied. "You need to rest and there's not much room on that cot, y'know?"

"I'll make room," he shrugged.

"I'll come back early in the morning," she suggested.

"Promise?"

"Of course I do," she replied. She walked over to the cot and leaned down, kissing him.

The pain that Jesse was in didn't matter. He wanted Cassie close to him, so he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her closer to him. The weight of his arms caused her to drop her knees onto the cot and she nearly fell onto his injured upper body.

"Jesse," she murmured. "You're injured."

"I don' care, Cass."

"You should," she pulled away a little more.

"I need ya," he told her smirking a little.

"Not with three cracked ribs," she replied, she wanted to be intimate with him just as he wanted to with her, but she knew that denying him was for his own good. "I love you and I'll see you tomorrow." She looked back at him in realization. "I um...can I barrow your car? I kind of don't have a way home other wise."

"Hmm," he said, putting on a playful thinking face.

"You're not going to make your pregnant girlfriend walk home, are you?"

"Fiancee," he corrected.

"I don't think so. I don't have a ring on...Speaking of which, where is my ring?"

"You want it back?"

She gave him a loving smile and nodded. "Yeah, why wouldn't I?"

Jesse felt his heart leap in his chest. Everything was falling back into place. "Be careful with the car."

"I will," she had set the keys on the table near his cot so she grabbed them and kissed him one last time.

Without further ado, she went back to Walt and Skyler's house for the night. She knew that if she did stay at Jesse's, he would have trouble keeping his hands to himself and she didn't want him to further injure himself.

She parked at the curb, being as there wasn't much more room in the driveway and her car was already barked there. She went inside and found that only Skyler was home. Walt Junior must have been out with friends...or something. Cassie couldn't be sure unless she asked, but it wasn't really her business anyway. Just like it wasn't Skyler's business where Cassie had been, but of course the blonde would ask anyway.

"Hey," Skyler greeted. "Where did you go?" she sounded like she was simply curious, but Cassie had always seen it as nosiness. "Your car was still here and Walt's wasn't so I figured you left with him."

"I had some things that I needed to do and Walt was going the same way so I got a ride with him and let him run the rest of his errands before getting a ride home," Cassie shrugged it off.

"Is that why you drove _Jesse's_ car back?"

"It happened to be the only way I could get home..." It wasn't totally a lie, but it wasn't the truth either.

"You saw him, didn't you? I thought we talked about this...he's not good for you or the baby."

"Skyler, you don't know him like I do. He loves me and he loves this baby."

"You told him?"

"Yes I did, and he was thrilled. I'm going to move back in with him tomorrow."

"Why? So that he can screw up again?"

"No, so that I can have a family. I don't want my child growing up and never seeing their father. I'm going to make this work because we love each other and our baby." She ended the conversation by walking back to her room-much like she had when she was a teenager. Leaving seemed to be her solution when she didn't know what else to do.

**AN: Happy Friday y'all! I hope you enjoyed this chapter...half of it was written like a month ago and I just finished the rest today so it may seem different. Reviews are lovely. **


	14. Chapter 14

"You're certainly affectionate today," Cassie giggled as Jesse hugged her from behind and kissed her neck. He was walking around now, but he still had to take it easy.

"I missed ya."

"I can tell," she smiled brighter and continued to cook their breakfast. Reluctantly, they had moved back into the house. Jesse refused to go upstairs or near that bathroom so they had been sleeping downstairs. "We've got that damn open house today," she reminded him.

"Shit."

"We've just gotta make this place sound enticing."

"What time does that start?"

"Noon. Why?"

"I've got some stuff to take care of." Jesse felt Cassie tense and frowned. "I'll be alright."

"What happened last time, Jesse?" She turned off the stove and she rubbed his arms that were across her stomach.

"That wasn't the same, this is different, Cass."

"If you get yourself killed, I will never forgive you and our child won't either."

He knew that. He knew how lucky he was that she even came back to him in the first place. "I wouldn't do that to ya."

"I sure hope not. Are you taking care of your stuff before or after the open house?"

He considered this for a moment, he realized that this wasn't an option, she would likely be mad if he did choose wrong. "After."

"Okay," she turned around, faced him, and smiled a little. "I'm going to go shower."

"Can I-"

"No, you're still too injured," she knew what he was gong to ask. He was worse than a horny teenager sometimes and she could usually read his mind when it came to that. She settled with giving him a quick kiss.

"What 'bout breakfast?"

"I'm not hungry anymore," she started to walk off, but he stopped her.

"If you can tell me what to do, I can tell you to eat," he told her, looking at her sternly.

"But-"

"You're pregnant, Cass."

She frowned, but did as he asked anyway. After she ate, she showered and put on a pair of jeans and white, button down, silky shirt. She got a pair of black wedges out of her closet and made her way out to Jesse. He was dressed how he normally was. He had on jeans that were too big, a large sweatshirt, and a T-shirt under his sweatshirt. She didn't mind it though, Jesse Pinkman was the way he was and she wasn't going to try to change him. She loved him as is and that was a fact.

"The realtor should be here soon," she told him, rubbing her hand across his shoulder in an affectionate manor. He just nodded.

"Think Ginny would mind?" he asked a moment later.

Cassie knew that Jesse cared a lot for his aunt and it wasn't surprising that he was thinking about her.

"Why would she?"  
"This was her house," he shrugged. The real reason was that very late into Ginny's illness, she would often talk about how she always pictured Jesse and Cassie having children and raising them in this house and living happily. Jesse had always believed that some way, some how, Ginny had known-from the first moment she saw Cassie-that she was the girl that Jesse would always be with.

"She wouldn't want us to keep it if all it's going to do is cause you pain," she reasoned.

He shrugged and looked at her sadly. Right now, they were nearly the same height. He still had a little bit more than an inch over her, but all he had to do to look at her eyes was look straight ahead. She made the move to kiss him first, this time. He would have in another second if she hadn't.

He wrapped his arms around her lower back and held her close to him. One of his hands started to move down a little, but then the doorbell rang.

"That's the realtor," Cassie pulled away, and started to go to the door but she stopped. "You've got lipstick," she wiped his lips off with her thumb, it was her fault it was there anyway. He had never liked when she wore it because he did tend to kiss her a lot and he hated the taste of it.

Cassie then opened the door and an overly happy blonde made her way into the house. Cassie frowned, she didn't know how well she would do with this woman. She avoided people like that all of her life, but here one was, in her house. She just had to remind herself that it would only be until they sold the house. She could do, she hoped so anyway.

"So why are you selling the place?" a brunette asked, her arm around her husband. Cassie put on the best smile that she could muster-she hated pretending to be overly happy. She placed her hand on her own stomach.

"My fiance and I are having our first child, we want something bigger."

"How's the school around here?" the man asked. "We would like to start a family of our own some day."

Cassie couldn't help but think about how they should have already done that. They were like, old. They were in their forties, at least.

"It's good, we graduated from there ourselves."

"Really?" the woman asked.

"Cass, they would like to show them the upstairs," Jesse called over to her.

"Oh, okay, I'll be right there," she smiled at the couple. "Please feel free to keep looking around," she smiled again and made her way to help the other couple.

Cassie couldn't help but home that this house got sold fast, she really didn't want to keep having to do this.

**AN: Short one. Sorry. I just knew that I hadn't updated in a while and I figure that something is better than nothing. I need to watch season 2 again. I know I've changed a lot of stuff. I just got a job and I have to go through processing, orientation, and training still and tonight I have driving school so I have been very busy! I hoped you all liked this short little bit. Please review. **


	15. Chapter 15

Cassie stood in the kitchen, eating celery and peanut butter. She was always starving lately but she figured that she should eat something more healthy. She heard the front door swing open and she assumed that it was Jesse so she called for him. He came walking into the kitchen with an unreadable look on his face.

"What's the matter, honey?" she asked, putting down her celery stick. He didn't say anything, he walked over and rested his head on her shoulder. She raked her fingers through his hair, gently touching his scalp as she did so. "What is it, really?" her voice was soft as she held him close. "Baby, talk to me."

He murmured something and his voice vibrated against her skin. But, she couldn't make out a single word that he said. A moment later, he looked back up at her and met her eyes with his bright blue ones. "It was bad, Cass..." he said, finally.

"What do you mean? What was bad?"

Jesse explained about their run in wit Tuco, there was no use lying to her. She would fine out sooner or later and he would rather just tell her before she found out and they fought again.

"Jesse..."

"'M doin' this for us. So we can give our baby everythin' it needs an' raise it right. So it can go to college. I'm being smart about it."

"I've known what you were doing. But Jesus...you need to get the hell away from this psycho! What if he kills you? I don't know what I would do then, Jesse. I need you."

He pressed a solid kiss to her lips and whispered that he loved her. She smiled a little into his kiss and decided to just let it all go. He would figure it out and she couldn't make his decisions for him.

"I love you Cass," he pulled her closer to him and hugged her tightly.

"I love you too, Jesse. Just promise me...promise me that you won't get yourself killed. We've got a baby to worry about."

"Promise," he murmured and that was a promise that he planned on keeping, no matter what. Deep down, he had thought that she deserved someone better. Somebody that wasn't around drugs all the time, somebody that she didn't have to worry about getting shot in the street.

"I've got something to show you," she decided to change the topic from something depressing to something that should be happy. "I scheduled the next ultrasound appointment for tomorrow morning at eight. You'll get to see the baby," she beamed.

"I will?"

"Yeah, but you gotta get your lazy but out of bed early," she smirked.

"Maybe someone will be able to persuade me," he grinned.

"Of course. Only you would be trying to get sex out of this," she rolled her eyes but smiled at him nonetheless.

XxX

"Whatcha lookin' at?" Jesse asked when he walked into their bedroom and she had a book open on the bed. Even though he had once hated the idea of going back upstairs, he got over it because Cassie needed a comfortable bed to sleep on, not some cot out in the RV or the couch.

"Nothing important. She closed the book and started to put it on her nightstand but he became very interested in it. He took it and read the title.

"Baby names?" he guessed.

"Yeah, I just thought that I'd start looking early."

"Whatcha got so far?"

"Um, I like Tianna, Liliana, Maybelle, and Veronica for a girl. And for a boy I like Cade, Tucker, Grayson, and Carson. But I'm open to suggestions."

Jesse started thumbing through the book, waiting for something to catch his eye. It took him a moment, but once he got to the letter 'S' he slowed down, something told him that he would like something there. "Sophie," he read out loud.

"Sophie?" Cassie questioned.

"It means wisdom."

"I like that, actually. Sophie. Sophie Liliana Pinkman," Cassie couldn't retain her smile. "Do you like that?" she touched her flat stomach. If she wasn't told by the doctor that she was pregnant, she wouldn't believe it.

"Sounds perfect, yo."

"What if it's a boy? We could name him Jesse Jr."

Jesse just shook his head. She moved closer to him and started looking at the book with him. He had flipped back to the 'R' section and she found one. "Ronan. Little seal."

"Ronan Cade Pinkman."

"I love this all of this," she grinned from ear to ear. "I love you so much, Jesse," she kissed him deeply. He didn't protest what so ever as their kisses deepened more and more. He had missed all of this so much that he just wanted to savor it for as long as possible. They hadn't been intimate since she came back. They would have been, had it not been for his substantial injuries.

XxX

"Everything looks great, Miss White," the woman operating the ultrasound machine said. "The baby's heartbeat is strong and it seems very healthy. Would you like to see what it looks like?"

The two nodded excitedly as she pointed to a small spot in the middle of the screen.

"You're not far enough along to see much yet, but there your baby is. Would you like me to print off a picture for you guys?"

"Yes please," Cassie smiled. Jesse's fingers were laced with hers and he kissed her knuckles.

"Thought we'd be able to see more," he said, slightly disappointed.

"Soon," she told him. "In a couple of months, you'll be able to see a lot and, once I get about five or six months, you should be able to feel it kick-that's what I read anyway."

Jesse just smiled. At first, he may not have been as excited as he led on, but now, he really liked the idea of being a father. He just hoped that he would make a good one. He could surely tell the child what not to do.

XxX

Cassie had been out a lot. For that, Jesse was thankful. She had missed his and Walter's plans to kill Tuco completely. He didn't have to tell her about it if she didn't ask. It wasn't really lying, well, it kind of was, but she didn't need to worry about him more than she already did. She had enough stuff to occupy her time. She was still working with the realtor to tell the house so that they could find a place that better suited their needs.

However, Jesse wasn't lucky enough to not be home when the aforementioned drug lord, Tuco showed up. Jesse had planned on spilling the beans to Cassie, but he kind of got in the way of that. Jesse had wanted her to know because they needed to leave, to get out of town. It was all too late.

"This your girl?" Tuco asked, giving a grin that sent shivers down both Jesse and Cassie's spines. They didn't like his tone or the look he left on his face. "Who am kiddin'? It must be, right? She's in your house and she doesn't look like your sister." He moved closer to her as they were in the living room and he reached out to touch her but she-out of reflex-slapped his hand. "Bitch!" he reached his hand back to slap her.

"Leave her alone," Jesse started to move to protect Cassie but Tuco pulled out a gun and held it up to Jesse's head. "I-"

"Jesse don't. I'm fine," she assured him, giving him a stern 'stay back' look.

"You've probably got him whipped, don't you?" Tuco asked. She didn't answer. "Bitch, when I ask you something, you better answer me."

"No. No I don't have him 'whipped'."

Tuco grabbed a fist full of her hair and just held it for a moment. All of Cassie's muscles were tense and she was terrified for what could happen next.

"Let's go. You're fucking driving," Tuco moved the gun closer to Jesse and right away, the blue eyed man started out the door, leading them to his car. Cassie and Jesse both knew that they were probably facing certain death.


	16. Chapter 16

"Where the hell is she?" Jesse shouted to Tuco after being pulled from the trunk and thrown onto the ground. Cassie was his main concern. More than anything, he wanted her to be okay. If she wasn't, he wouldn't ever be able to live with himself. She was too innocent from all of this and it would be all his fault. If she would have simply stayed away from him-as much as he didn't want that at the time-she would have been fine. He wouldn't have to worry about whether she was alive or dead or if she was in any other sort of danger.

"The hell does it matter? You don't need the bitch anyway."

He didn't want to beg but he didn't know how to get an answer out of Tuco. "I do need to know...she's...important..." he couldn't believe that he had found himself here. They were in the middle of the desert and the only thing in sight was a shack, probably where Tuco stayed. Maybe Jesse was hoping for the wrong things. Maybe hoping that he and Cassie would survive this was too much. If one thing was always true, it was that if you were taking out into the middle of nowhere, it was to be murdered. Maybe he should just hope that it's quick for the both of them.

The sadness of never seeing his child was overwhelming. All of the what ifs ran though his head at a million miles per hour. He hadn't wanted kids at this point, he wanted to do better for Cassie first, but now that it had been a possibility and it may not be now, he was worried.

Tuco began leading them into the house. "For your sake, she better be," was the last thing he said on the matter of Cassie.

They walked into a living room. There was a TV playing and everything was in Spanish, the television was black and white while the walls appeared to be pink. There was an old couch that sat by the window and when Jesse's eyes scanned over that couch, his heart leaped. Despite his fatigue and dehydration, he moved himself forward at a much faster speed than he had been. Cassie found herself standing from the couch and anticipating his arms around her. She couldn't really move far because of the coffee table anyway and he was closer to her.

His arms made their way around her shoulders and he kissed her temple first, then her cheek, and finally her lips. She could feel how dry his felt against her own and frowned a little. Tuco had only given her a small cup of water, but she hadn't been trapped in the trunk of a car. She had been inside with the Spanish channel playing and the old men watching it.

"Sit down," she commanded him. She could feel that his was weak and needed a rest. He didn't give a word of protest as he sat on the couch. She joined him as Walter made his way over to them and sat on the couch, it was a tight squeeze and she was more or less sitting on Jesse's lap because of the lack of room. Tuco had disappeared at this point and it was just them and the silent old man.

"Baby I-"  
"Shh," Cassie told him. "Just relax a little, okay? We have to stay calm." This was more for her benefit than his. She couldn't allow herself to get stressed, she had let it all roll off her back like water from a duck's feathers, she had to put the baby's needs before her own and the baby needed to be stress free. She couldn't afford to freak out.

They sat in silence for a while, probably about fifteen minutes. Jesse and Cassie were burning up, do to their closeness at the moment, but they didn't mind too much because this way, they knew the other was okay. It was incredibly hot but they needed to feel close to each other. Tuco walked into the room and slid them a gallon of water. Walter took the first big guzzle before handing it to Jesse. When he passed it over to Cassie, she only drank a little because there was no telling how long that jug would have to last them.

"Empty your pockets," Tuco then commanded them. The trio stood up and Walter pulled the objects from his pockets and set them on the table, a small bag of meth was included but the first thing Tuco picked up was his driver's license. "Walter Hartwell White? I thought you're name was Heizenburg."

"That's kind of a business name..."

"Family man too," he flipped through the rest of Walter's wallet and looked at some of the family photos. Tuco picked up Jesse's wallet next and laughed when he found a condom inside. If the situation were different, Cassie may have been laughing with Tuco, she didn't know that was in there but she should have expected it, considering how well she knew Jesse. "And you," he pointed to Cassie as he looked through her purple wallet-she didn't like to carry a purse, they were always in the way. "You're related to him, aren't you?" he then pointed to Walter.

"She's my niece," Cassie was pleasantly surprised when Walter spoke for her. She didn't want to talk, not to Tuco.

"And you're not pissed off about your business partner fucking your pretty little niece?"

Walter wasn't sure what the right answer was at this point. He wasn't worried about being honest, that wasn't what Tuco wanted, he needed to be right. "No."

Tuco found all of this funny and began laughing again before he walked over to Walter and grabbed the side of his neck and watched his face carefully for what seemed like forever. "Can I trust you?" he finally asked.

"Yes," Walter said, he couldn't hesitate, he had to answer the question correctly or all three of them would find themselves dead.

"Good." They all were told to sit back down, so they did and then Tuco began explaining out the DEA had raided his place earlier. His theory involved people ratting on him from his own group, which only further pissed him off. Cassie and Walter would not dare mention that Hank was probably involved in all of this. They had to agree with what he said and just keep going.

Tuco went on a rant about needed to get high and Cassie tried to ignore it all, so not to stress herself out. She wouldn't say anything unless he spoke directly to her and she absolutely had to.

"So I've been thinking," Tuco said. "Mexico."

"Mexico?" Walter asked.

"Yeah, Goddamn DEA won't be a problem down there. We can really do business then."

"I can't uproot my family," Walter said.

"Yeah man, me neither," Jesse agreed. He knew that Cassie wanted out of New Mexico but not into real Mexico!

"Nobody's talking to you," Tuco gave Jesse this look, this look that said that he could be dead in seconds.

"You need me, man. You need me to cook. I cooked that stuff in your hand." It was the meth that Walt and Jesse had added ricin to so that they could poison him. After Jesse began explaining it better, in terms that Cassie still didn't quite understand-she didn't ever try to learn drug lingo-Tuco almost snorted it, but Jesse made one fatal mistake. He told Tuco that there was chili powder in the meth and he put it down right away.

He pulled out different meth, snorted it and then got up with his gun. He pointed it at Jesse and Cassie both.

"Stop, please. I need them. If they don't go, I don't go," Walter said.

"What good are they?"

"He is my partner and she knows that chemistry."

"We've got you for that," Tuco started to grab her by her hair, knowing that they probably wouldn't be able to take both of them anyway.

"No, without her, I could mess up, I could make a fatal mistake, she has to stay alive, Tuco," Walter's voice was pleading now.

Ending his internal war, Tuco sighed. "You two better how they've got room in the trunk." he left the living room without another word.

There was only one thing that was clear in all of their minds, it was highly likely that they wouldn't get out of this alive and the deciding factor was a hot head with a gun. In other words, they were screwed.

**AN: I'm sorry it's been to long! I've been really busy, but it's up. Hopefully I get the next part out really soon. As always, I love your reviews and feedback. **


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